One World Too Many
by LeviTamm
Summary: Worlds collide, but there's one too many. Someone who understands a little about the meta-game of Yugioh, a player from the real world, is transported to the spirit world to help the main characters deal with a new threat. Maybe he needs to teach them a thing or two about how the game is actually played? (Not to be taken too seriously at all) OC main. YGO/5D's/GX multi-cross.
1. Chapter 1: The New World

**Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh in any sense.**

 **A/N: So, I was talking to a friend a while back, and he sort of challenged me to write something like this. I wrote it in one sitting for the most part, and didn't really take it too seriously.**

 **I think he was drunk when he suggested it to me. But, the idea sort of grew on me. Might turn this into a full story, might not. Not really sure.**

 **The point is, don't take this particular story too seriously. I sure don't. But it's just sitting on my computer, and I figured that I should throw it out there for you fine people to either flame, review, or maybe even get a laugh out of.**

 **As with all my stories, there is no update schedule at all.**

 **It probably isn't necessary, but I feel that I should also say, that despite this coming off as a shameless self-insert story, I don't actually hold most of the opinions that the main character does. He's designed to be an asshole/lazy bastard, not as a carbon copy of me.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

I glanced up from my computer screen when I noticed some movement in the hallway outside my bedroom door. I'm not entirely sure what it was that I was expecting to see, but it certainly hadn't been what I saw. I thought it would have been my dog or something. It was just the two of us in the house at the moment, and he sometimes wandered down the stairs from my parent's bedroom upstairs to my room to whine at me. The thing slept for like half the day, every day, but it's not like I was in a position to call others lazy. I've been doing the same all week, myself.

After my eyes locked onto the _thing_ in the hallway, I just stared at it for a while.

I'm not sure if there was something wrong with me when I was born, or if it was some habit I had developed somewhere throughout my life, but it took a lot to get a reaction out of me. A lot.

At my old house one day, before I had moved to this new place, a car had crashed through my living room wall while I had been sitting on the couch next to it, drinking some chocolate milk. After the rubble had settled and the car had come to halt less than two feet away from me, I had still been sitting there, drinking. I had seen the vehicle coming from the corner of my eye through the window and somehow, my subconscious mind had calculated that it would miss and decided that it would be a waste of energy to jump out of the way.

Calculated laziness. It was a trait that I just had for some reason.

So when I saw someone― at least I think it was a someone― in my hallway, despite knowing that there was supposed to be nobody else in my house at the moment, I just stared at them for a while with no expression on my face, instead of freaking out.

"..."

The two of us locked eyes for a while. Me, sitting in my computer chair with a glass of chocolate milk in my hand, staring into the red eyes of what I assumed to be a cosplayer home invader. It was a woman, I think. It had a huge rack, whatever it was. As in boobs. Like balloon-sized, unrealistically massive, without a doubt plastic surgery modified, huge. It had purple skin, light blue hair, weird tattoos everywhere, what looked to be horns, and a giant sword and a red cape. I had to take a moment to stand in awe of the intricacy of the costume. It was the most impressive one I had ever seen.

I did all of this without so much as a twitch of my facial expression.

"Nice outfit," I said after a short delay, to the home invader. It was true. This person was truly dedicated.

My comment seemed to startle her.

"Wha-?" She began with widened eyes. It seemed she was expecting a different reaction.

She shook her head rapidly, a gesture that made it look like she was clearing her head of whatever thoughts had shown up in there. Then she jumped down onto the ground immediately, threw her sword to the side, and began pleading.

"I need your help, please!"

I stared for a moment at her, in silence. There were these weird golden loopy things that seemed to be floating in the air around various parts of her. Around her wrists, and around her… tail. She had a tail. That was interesting.

"With what?"

"I need you to come with me!"

I took another sip of my milk.

"Why?"

She immediately looked upset.

"Wh-what do you mean why? Don't you recognize me?"

"No." Should I? This situation was so bizarre.

She looked hurt by my immediate response. She looked like she was about to say something again, but then gained a determined glint in her eye.

When she reached for my hand, I enacted the escape plan that my mind had thrown together a few moments ago.

On my desk, I had a hammer. I wasn't exactly sure why it was still there, but I'm pretty sure I was trying to take it from my kitchen to my garage a few days ago, got distracted, and brought it to my room instead. I had yet to complete the journey to return it. Too lazy, I guess.

I grabbed my hammer, and threw it at my bedroom window while simultaneously emptying the rest of my milk into her hair, and all over her face. I heard the shattering glass, as my hammer went through the window and kept going.

She squawked in surprise.

A moment later, I turned, kicked both of my feet off my bedroom wall, and with a straight, emotionless face, began speeding towards the broken window on my computer chair.

My chair had wheels on it, and my floor was hardwood, so I got a good amount speed going. I felt the back of my chair hit the wall by my window, my chair tipped backwards, and I backflipped over it, and clean out the window into my backyard.

She had a sword after all. And the self defense laws in my country were pretty shitty. I'd end up in jail if I had just cracked her over the head with a hammer, instead. Retreat was better.

I almost smiled when I thought about what a bitch it would be to get the chocolate milk stains out of her costume and hair. So yeah. Take that.

I was planning to land into a backwards somersault on my lawn. I had once been the Grounders champion when I was in highschool, and I had learned some interesting tricks to run away from people during that time. This was one of them.

But I was a bit surprised when there was a flash of light that enveloped me, and I ended up landing on what felt like hardwood. The sudden change in the expected hardness of the ground actually hurt my back a bit when I executed the roll. I had never practiced rolling on hard surfaces before. Let alone backwards rolls. I had always practiced just on grass. So I definitely felt a good bit of pain there.

I slowly stood up, stumbled a bit, and took in my new surroundings.

The air felt different, and I definitely wasn't in my yard, anymore. I was in a building of some sort. And were those… people? There was a crowd of people just staring at me. Many of whom looked surprised at my sudden entrance.

Before anyone could react, there was another purple flash of light, and the weird cosplayer suddenly appeared in the room.

And she was fuming.

Her hair was soaked with chocolate milk, and so was the fur in her costume. Her hair was covering her eyes, and her hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.

Despite the situation, I almost broke my emotionless face with a smile. I found her situation quite amusing. She probably didn't think she'd get a face-full of milk after executing that scheme of hers.

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, as everyone took stock of the situation.

The cosplayer was holding a case now. And I actually recognized it, too. It was mine, after all. But it had been years since I had seen it. It had been in my closet for the longest time, way at the back. I haven't looked at the contents in a long time, though. I had, in fact, intended to sell them at some point, but just never got around to it in the end.

They were my old Yugioh cards. Some of them, anyways. Was this cosplayer trying to steal them? Why?

I took a brief glance at the rest of the people in the room. It was a big room, and there were a lot of people. And holy hell did some of them have some impressive haircuts.

"Wh- what was that for!" The cosplayer finally screamed at me.

I turned my head back towards her and stared. I tried to think of something witty to say for a moment, but there weren't any chocolate milk themed jokes off the top of my head. So I just continued to stare at her for a while, still holding my empty glass of chocolate milk that I had managed to hold on to all this time.

It was an awkward few moments. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I wasn't in my yard, and I seemed to have been teleported somehow. Which made this a dream or hallucination, most likely. I didn't do drugs or drink, so the explanation for the last few moments of my life was probably along those lines.

My hesitation to answer her seemed to piss her off even more.

"Do you have any idea how long it will take to clean this out of my fur?! It'll take forever!"

"Good," I responded immediately. Emotionless responses seemed to always irritate people who were already angry, and that's why I always gave them to people that were. It was a great source of entertainment, and today had been a pretty boring day until a few minutes ago. There was a mask that I would put on in occasions like this, whenever I wanted to be as annoying, stubborn, and as difficult as possible. It was in place now. And I was immovable.

Her response didn't disappoint. She fumed again, and looked moments away from another tirade, but she managed to regain control of herself at the last moment, and collect herself.

That wouldn't do.

"That was the intention," I continued. "You're a thief who broke into my house, and tried to rob me. Clearly, you suck at it though." I looked her obviously soaked form up and down for a moment before a witty one liner suddenly came to me.

"You're washed up."

...

Sometimes, I amaze even myself.

There were witnesses now, so she wouldn't be able to come at me with that sword anymore. Which meant I could mess with her as much as I wanted without repercussions.

Some part of me was a bit disappointed about that though. I had this whole escape plan ready to go.

In my neighbourhood, there was this inside joke amongst everyone on my street, that my next door neighbour was a hitman. He'd always return home with the weirdest injuries from _'car accidents,'_ and he'd always mysteriously come into large amounts of money, suddenly. I had once caught him teaching his kids some arabic language too, and when I had asked what language it had been, he had responded with 'French.'

It had not been french.

He was the nicest guy though. But he had a real James Bond feel to him. I figured that someone like that wouldn't like his property destroyed, so I had intended to jump the fence in my backyard, into his yard, and dodge the sword wielding cosplayer whenever she decided to attack me. She'd swing, miss, smash some of Mr. Hitman's property, and then Mr. Hitman would make her go away.

Problem solved.

"I'm not a thief!" She shrieked. "Do you seriously not recognize me?!" She closed the distance and started looking desperate.

I was a bit disappointed. Evidently my previous one liner had fallen flat. Also, no. I definitely didn't recognize her. Pretty sure I'd remember someone with purple skin.

"Should I?" I questioned, lazily.

"I'm your duel spirit!"

"My what?"

She looked me right in the eye, and looked near tears.

"It's me... Leo."

"Who?" But, you know, now that I thought about it, she did kind of look familiar. Well, she didn't, but her cape did. That shade of red. It was really the fact that she was carrying around a case containing some of my Yugioh cards that gave me the idea, though.

I used to play Lunalights in Yugioh tournaments a while back. I won a few of them here and there with them, but I had largely stopped playing the game competitively after that. The community was just too cancerous. I never really played for that long, either. And I had never really looked at the card pictures too closely. Just kind of recognized a few key features that would allow me to identify a card from a cursory glance at a distance. A red cape here, a giant sword there...

The pictures really didn't show a lot of details either unless you really looked for them, too. So it made sense that I hadn't recognized her immediately. She was cosplaying as one of my old Yugioh cards, apparently. Lunalight Leo Dancer.

She looked devastated by my question.

"Lunalight Leo Dancer," she stated her name again, in a way that would leave no room for confusion.

"You don't look it," was my reply. I did recognize her by this point, but I also didn't feel like admitting it.

"Wha-?"

"Listen, I don't care who you think you are. Your name is _Thief_ for all I care."

"For the last time, I'm not a thief!"

"That briefcase in your hand belongs to me," I pointed out. "I didn't give you permission to take it. Therefore, you stole it. Thief is a fitting descriptor." It was a pretty iron-clad argument if I did say so myself.

"You broke into my house," I continued, before she could interrupt, "stole my shit, came at me with a sword, and now you've kidnapped me." I whistled in amazement. "That's like twenty five years minimum in a maximum security jail."

"Kidnapped?! I didn't kidnap you either!"

"Really?" I asked, skeptically. "Open up that purple portal thing that you brought me through again right now please, then. I choose to leave right this second."

She glanced away and flinched, looking guilty.

I needed no more confirmation to know that I wasn't allowed to leave.

"I'm not allowed to leave for some reason, am I? That is the definition of kidnapping, if I'm not mistaken." I locked eyes with her and poked her in the collar bone with my index finger to emphasize my next point. Or rather, I poked the crescent moon shaped bone thing, that was covering her collar bone. It was like this weird sort of necklace, without a string. It was as if it had been glued on to her skin there. This lady had the weirdest fashion sense.

"You're a criminal, and don't you ever forget it."

"I'm not! How was I supposed to get you here then, huh? We need your help!"

"Ever thought of asking politely? That probably would have done the trick."

"I did ask politely!"

"No, you asked politely, then came at me with a sword before explaining the situation, or hearing my answer."

"You know," I continued, "the thing that throws me off the most about all of this, is that this whole scheme of yours was planned out. At some point, after coming up with this plan of yours to come get me, you sat back, in review, and thought: 'Yeah. Yeah, this will work.' I'll break into his house first. Then I'll draw my sword. Then lunge at him real quick-like so he can't escape. That will show him how friendly I am, and will truly portray my need for his assistance."

"I didn't think you were going to be this difficult," she replied, exasperated, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"This is clearly a valuable learning experience, then. So take notes." I changed my tone to one reminiscent of a lecturer's. "When you kidnap your next victim, it's important to understand that they likely won't cooperate with you at first when you try."

"There's an art to it, you see. And you have to―"

"Are we seriously relying on someone like this, to help us?" A new voice entered the conversation, interrupting my explanation.

I looked over and saw some guy with crazy orange hair. Hair that I was, incidentally, about to make fun of for the implied insult. But I was beaten to the punch.

"Shut up!" The cosplayer shouted at Mr. Orange. "He is way better at dueling than any of you could ever hope to be!"

Was I just defended by a kidnapper? And I'm better at _dueling_? Perhaps defended wasn't the right word. What a nerd-fest.

"Woah, take it easy!" Orange put up his hands in a placating gesture. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought that the best duelist would, you know…"

"Know, what?" Leo the cosplayer pressed.

"He's this so-called best duelist?" A fourth voice entered. "Not bloody likely. No way someone like this can beat these guys. Not a chance."

It was a blonde guy with a white robe this time. Weird haircut too. Straight out of the eighties. Definitely british too, by the accent. I was about to respond when the cosplayer beat me to it again.

"He can!" Leo continued. Then she started to ramble on and on, and got into an increasingly heated debate with the guy about how awesome I was at dueling, apparently.

I tuned her out during it, and instead of getting involved, I started reflecting on the past few moments of my life.

About two minutes ago, I had been surfing the internet and watching a couple of livestreams. Just really enjoying my week off from school. And now? I had no idea where I was, some nerdy cosplayer with a sword had kidnapped me, stole a bunch of my Yugioh cards, and now I was in a room with a bunch of freak shows. Even for me, that was a little bit much. I had not been prepared for today.

And damn, that had actually been a pretty ninja move on my part, with that hammer and backflip out my bedroom window. That probably would have looked so cool on film. My old highschool friends would have probably shit their pants in amazement, if they had seen it. And shit. Now that I thought about it, it was pretty lucky that my window had actually smashed completely like that. I could have sliced myself up pretty badly if the hole hadn't been big enough to get through.

I had no idea if this was all a dream or not, but it had to be. I had never had such a vivid one before, but teleportation and wormholes was a bit harder to accept at face value, than that. I should probably proceed as if it wasn't a dream just in case though. It would suck if I died here, and didn't wake up.

I glanced at the crowd of people in the room. It was filled with a bunch of weirdos. One, two, three, four… there were eighteen of them, I think. Might have double counted a few. Or missed some. Was there some kind of party going on here? It'd have to be a pretty depressing one though if there was. A lot of the people here looked pretty upset. And there was a lot of tension in the room. Many of them hadn't even looked my way yet, and were ignoring the insult battle going on between Leo and the british guy. The really depressed ones were just staring at the floor with a defeated expression.

These people needed my help? That's what the cosplayer had said, anyways. Why? I should probably find that out.

I tuned back in to the shouting match.

"Go fuck yourself in your garbage face, you piece of shit!"

Everyone's newly widened eyes were on Leo the cosplayer, now. Mine included.

That particular remark had ended the argument, and the room had been silenced. Even the british guy the comment had been directed at, looked surprised by it.

There were a few moments of silence before Leo finally caught up with what she had just shouted, and she flushed red in embarrassment.

Clearly she had just blurted it out without thinking at all. That was funny. Before she could stammer out an apology or something like that to ruin the moment though, I decided I had to intervene.

"Woah. Brutal," my voice filled the room. I let my genuine amazement lace my tone. "I don't think I've ever flipped my opinion on someone so quickly before. That was awesome."

She looked my way in surprise, and I waved my hands in an encouraging motion.

"Do more." What a fantastic source of entertainment, she was.

"Wha-?" She began. "I..."

Out of the corner of my eye I was able to pinpoint the exact moment the brown haired guy had had enough. He was a bit like a thermometer. I could measure his slowly increasing annoyance level by looking at how much red there was.

There was a slamming noise as he hit the armrest of the couch he was sitting on and stood up. Everyone turned his way at the sound.

"Are you morons done yet!?" Brock from Pokemon shouted. I swear that's exactly who he sounded like. He didn't look anything like that cartoon character, but sounded almost identical. Like a really grouchy Brock.

But man, had it been years since I had seen that show. Not since I was a kid. I'd never forget that voice though. Not Brock's. His was iconic.

"In case you people haven't noticed," Brock continued after a moment of silence, "this isn't the time for your stupid games."

"He's right," a new, softer voice perked up. A guy with black, red, and blonde hair, spiked in a crazy way that had to have taken hours of extreme care to get right. "This world is in danger, and we don't have a lot of time left before we have to face those guys again. If we aren't ready by then, then we could all be in a lot of trouble."

"I don't know who you are," he continued after looking in my direction, "but we need your help. Please."

There was that _'needing my help'_ thing again. It'd be great if someone actually explained to me what I was supposed to do. But I guess that'd just make it too easy.

I looked down at the floor where I had originally landed in this room, and found my hat still laying there. I had started wearing it because of my stupid bedroom window being in the most inconvenient location. Whenever I was sitting at my computer, at about two pm, the sun would shine in at the exact angle to burn my retinas unless I was wearing my hat. But it had dropped onto the floor during my dramatic, rolling entrance into the room.

I kind of wanted it back now. After wearing it for a while, it felt weird not having it on.

Mr. Orange from earlier, spoke up next.

"Come to think of it, I don't know who this guy is either. He isn't from our time."

I walked over to pick up my hat.

"Our's either." This time it was a tall guy with blue hair, and an elaborate black coat. "It must mean he's from theirs after all. We'd have recognized him if he were a top duelist in one of our timelines."

"Eh, does that mean he can do those crazy combos too?" Was that a Brooklyn accent I just heard?

"Maybe. We did summon a top duelist here after all." A guy with hair that had been sharpened into a point.

Wow, there were a lot of people here. I was definitely not a people person at all, in case that wasn't already obvious. And I was _summoned_ here? What the hell did that even mean?

"So, what you're saying is, now we have to rely on some guy that none of us have seen before, in order to get our decks back and save the world," Brock said. "Well isn't that just perfect."

Wow. This guy really seemed like a dick.

I picked up my hat, and put it on.

I felt the need to respond to that. I didn't like dicks.

I put my empty chocolate milk glass on the ground and stood up.

"Look," I said. "I don't know who you are, and to be honest, I don't think I really care either."

Everyone's eyes locked onto me.

"I didn't choose to come here. I was minding my own business in my house just minutes ago, before this one right here," I gestured towards the cosplayer, "kidnapped me."

"You're being forced to rely on me?" I asked. "I was threatened into coming here by a thief, and now I have to put up with this bullshit? Fuck you. Fuck your decks," because what was this about stolen decks and who the hell cares? "And fuck your world. You don't have to rely on me for shit. Point out the exit, buddy, and I'll be on my way."

Some little shit spoke up next.

"You can't speak to my brother that way!"

Fucking enabler.

"Oh? And why is that?" I replied lazily.

"Do you have any idea who he is!?"

"I thought we just established that I don't. I also don't care. I treat people as they treat me. Act like a dick, I'll treat you like one."

"Why don't we all just calm down," a new voice chimed in.

I looked up at the new guy. He had a weird mark on his face, and I was digging the orange knee pads he had on.

"Look, I have no idea who you are, but we could really use your help. We're in a bit of a sticky situation here."

Okay, I had had about enough of this talking in circles crap. That was like the fifth time I had been told that my assistance was required and yet still, nobody had told me why I was here.

"Okay, how about this," I began. "I have a request. I have no idea where I am, why I am here, or how I even got here, for that matter. Tell me all of these things, and the specific reason that I am here, and then we'll talk about the whole 'me helping you out,' thing."

"Also, do it in as few words as possible," I added as an afterthought. "Don't talk in circles and be direct. Be blunt, and give it to me straight."

There was a moment of silence.

"It's a… bit of a long story."

Not at all what I wanted to hear. I was just about to tell him that too, when I felt someone grab my hand and pull it. I turned to look who it was.

Leo the cosplayer. She sighed and looked me right in the eye.

"You're in the spirit world, which is a realm inhabited entirely by duel spirits like myself. There has been a war going on here for the last few years, and the people responsible for starting it are from your world. We don't know how they got here."

"They have been imprisoning duel spirits en masse, and the only way to release them is by defeating these people in a duel," she continued. "The problem is, these duelists are far stronger than anything any of us have ever seen before. And every time one of us loses a duel, our decks are taken from us, and the spirits living inside them are imprisoned."

"Despite everyone else in this room being top tier duelists, everyone here has lost their deck after being defeated. There is nobody left here to stop these people, as they use strategies that none of us have ever seen before."

"We managed to, however, summon one final duelist to stand up to them, and that's you. We figured that since you were also from that world, you would stand a better chance. We want you to defeat these duelists to free the spirits that they have imprisoned. If you fail, or refuse, it's likely that everyone in this realm will share the same fate, myself included. The how's and why's to all of these things can only be explained through a long winded story that would probably take at least an hour to tell."

I took a moment to take all of that in. Easily the stupidest thing I'd ever heard someone say to my face, but I had spent a lot of time on the internet. I was essentially desensitized to stupid ideas and weird story plots, and with my weird ability to not react to most things, I was able to come to terms with it all almost immediately.

I just stared at her for a while, though, in an attempt to make her feel as uncomfortable as possible. Idly, I was able to tell that everyone else in the room was just staring at me with bated breath, awaiting my reaction.

My silence seemed to make Leo nervous, so she started talking again, nervously rubbing her arm as she continued.

"Since you live in that world, and I'm your duel spirit, I too, live in your world, and I have seen what you are capable of. You are without question, the best duelist that I have ever seen. If anyone can do this, it's you."

I had to sit back for a few more moments to process everything. When I was finished, I gave my answer.

"So, in short, you want me to beat a couple of people at Yu-"

"Duel Monsters," Leo quickly corrected, with a pointed look.

It took me a moment to understand why. When I figured it out, I almost laughed.

But I didn't.

These people... they were from the Yugioh anime. That kid with the spiky hair, that was Yugi Mutou, wasn't he? From the show. I had never actually watched it, but everything just sort of fell into place in that moment. These people obviously didn't call their card game 'Yugioh,' because that would be weird when one of the characters was named Yugi. Instead, they called it 'Duel Monsters,' apparently. So, I was somehow in a room with a bunch of anime characters, and they wanted me to beat up a couple of anime villains for them in a card game.

Neat.

How did Leo fit in then? She was an anime character too, but she seemed to know it. Or was the Yugioh world actually real, and the creator of the anime had somehow travelled there at some point in the past, or had some sort of psychic vision into that world, only to return and tell the story of what he'd seen? In any case, Leo seemed to think it a good idea to not mention to these people that there was a cartoon about them in my world.

"You want me to beat a couple of people at Duel Monsters?" I corrected.

She hesitated for a moment.

"Yes."

"And why couldn't you have just started with that, instead of breaking into my house with a sword?" There were a whole bunch of questions that I still had left, but I intended to wait for a bit longer to ask them. I wasn't in a rush at the moment. I had time. My parents were on vacation, my dog had food and water, and I had nowhere to be for the next week or so. I could literally be stuck here for days and not inconvenience anyone.

Oh, I'd have to deal with dog shit in the house though, when I got back. This was not a pleasant realization. But it gave me an idea.

I'd just get Leo to clean it up as payment for my services.

"I didn't break into your house, dammit!" Leo screamed.

"You did," I replied.

"I live there too!"

"Really?" Come to think of it, that actually made me pause. That insult she had thrown at the british guy earlier, telling him to fuck himself in his piece of shit face, or whatever it had been, I had actually heard that exact insult a few days ago in a random YouTube video. She had repeated it almost word for word.

Had she overheard it?

"Yes! How many times do I have to tell you that I'm your duel spirit?! What part of that are you not understanding?!"

"The core concept, obviously. I don't know what that means. Are you like, freeloading in my house, watching everything I do like some sort of stalker?"

"I'm not a criminal!"

I bit back my instinctive urge to continue the argument. To point out that yes, in fact, she was a criminal. I could have kept it going for a while, especially since this person was so easy to rile up, but there were still a few things that I needed to know.

"So, when do I have to fight these people, how many do I have to fight, and what happens when I win? Do I get to go home?"

She looked relieved that I had dropped the argument for the moment, and responded.

"The portal won't open again for a while. Like I said earlier, this war has been going on for a few years already. Basically, the more duel spirits that get imprisoned, the weaker the potency of the magic in the world. It takes a lot of magic power to open one of those portals, so if you win these duels and release the spirits, the time that it takes to gather the magic to open it up again will be shortened, but it will still take a bit of time. You will still be stuck here for a bit, either way."

Her quick, to the point descriptions were definitely helpful. Maybe she knew me a little better than I gave her credit for. I hated verbal bullshit.

She continued.

"We know that there are at least eight duelists in total. But if you win against one or two, some of the others here will get their decks back, and they can help you finish off the rest. They are actually waiting outside this building right now, and you will meet them as soon as you go out that door. To make another long-winded story incredibly short, time is basically temporarily accelerated in here, so hours for us last seconds for them, which gives us a bit of time to prepare."

That was awfully convenient. I stared at her for another few moments, and then I made my decision.

"Okay." I stuffed my hands in my pockets, and walked towards the steel case of Yugioh cards that Leo had put down earlier.

She sat stunned for a moment.

"...You mean you will do it?"

"Sure."

I could almost feel how her spirits lifted at that. I wanted to make things as clear as possible though. So that there was no ambiguity here. Because I was still livid, despite my totally emotionless expression.

"I'm going to be honest though. For a moment. No bullshit, or teasing. Just the truth." I turned to look back at her, my eyes hidden beneath the brim of my hat.

"You dragged me into this mess against my will, and are offering me nothing for it. You have literally imprisoned me here. You have taken away my right to freedom, and are saying that you will give it back, only if I work you."

"That is the single most reprehensible thing someone can do to another person," I continued. "These people that you are bothered by so much for imprisoning these duel spirits… that is exactly what you have done to me. When this is over, I expect you to leave my house, and never speak to me again."

"I fucking hate you," I finished in my usual, laid-back, emotionless tone. Then I continued walking without another word.

That should clear everything up nicely.

I didn't hear her reply, and there was another moment of silence. I kept walking towards the case, and when I got there, I crouched down, and opened it up to begin deck building.

"Dude… and you called her brutal. Was that really necessary to say?"

I don't know who said it, but I responded to whoever it was anyways. My back was turned to them as I continued going through my cards.

"Like I said a few moments ago. I treat people the way they treat me. Act like a dick, I'll treat you like one."

"I don't know about you guys," I continued, "but kidnapping qualifies you as a dick in my books. Especially if they detain you afterwards, or if they threaten you with a sword." I wasn't sure exactly how many cards were inside this case, or exactly which ones, but I could probably deal with whatever was here.

Or maybe this would be a little harder than I thought.

Leo had grabbed the wrong case. Wonderful. My actual good decks were in the box in my basement, then. Not this one. I'd have to get a bit creative with the deck I wanted to put together. My Lunalights weren't in this one. Well not all of them anyways. Leo herself, the _card_ , was here, but she was useless without the other Lunalights.

"Still, you don't have to be so harsh on her. She was only trying to help us out."

A woman this time. I wasn't facing their direction so I couldn't tell who it was.

I decided to reply anyway.

"How about this," I began, after getting an idea. "Consider this hypothetical situation." Continuing to deck build in the meantime, I laid out an analogy.

"You go to sleep one night, and everything is fine. Then you wake up the next day in a house you've never been to, surrounded by people you've never met before, some of whom who are clearly unbearable assholes, and now the person whom you've come to learn is directly responsible for your sudden relocation, is telling you that you're not allowed to leave."

"This person then says, 'you will be able to leave eventually, but only after you win a twenty kilometer bicycle race to the next town.'" That summed it up pretty well, I think. This should work. "Think of how stupid and absurd that situation is."

"That is how I view the situation I'm currently in right now." I paused for a moment to let that all sink in before emphasizing my last few points. "So what the hell do you think I'm going to say to the person responsible? Thank you? What would you say to the person in that hypothetical scenario I just described, if it were you? If after chewing them out for kidnapping you― which I'd bet you'd absolutely do― somebody else claimed that, 'oh, it wasn't her fault that you have to compete in this bicycle race,' or 'she was just trying to help out.'"

"I don't care. You took me from my life, and are forcing me to do something I not only didn't sign up for, but something I'm not getting payed for either."

My rant was interrupted by the voice of righteous indignation. Of fucking course it was.

"What are you even talking about! This is way different than that! People's lives are at stake here, this isn't for some stupid competition or race!"

Again, no idea who said that. A woman somewhere though.

"Commiting a crime to fix your problems won't earn you any respect from me."

"Also," I continued, "if this were serious enough to bet people's lives on, why the hell would you pick me for it? Leo here, has clearly been watching me for a while like the stalker that she is. She should have known that I wouldn't have bought or agreed to any of this voluntarily." Had she been forced into it somehow? I refused to believe that I'm the best Yugioh player in the world. Not a fucking chance.

"There are people in my world that would give an arm to be able to travel to another world like this one to play a card game. Fucking weirdos, the lot of them, but you had plenty of options."

"I haven't even picked up a deck in years, because honestly, who the hell even plays duel monsters anymore?" I let that last sentence linger in the air, and I awaited a response.

I was not disappointed.

"Oh great," Brock started. "So you're not even a duelist either, then. What a waste." He then glared at a depressed looking Leo. "He does have a point though, why would you pick some pathetic loser like this, to duel these people."

Pathetic loser, huh. That was rich coming from him.

"This is a matter of critical importance. Not something that we can afford to waste time on." Brock was going to continue his rant, but was stopped.

By Leo herself, surprisingly. She started shouting.

"I didn't choose him! We summoned the best duelist in the world, and my master is who we got! Why? Because he _is_ the best! You haven't seen him play the game before! None of you have!"

What the hell lit a fire under her ass? And what did she just call me? Master? The fuck kinda kinky fetishes was she into? And whatever they were, leave me the hell out of them!

She needed to shut up. Preaching about how awesome someone is at a children's card game is about the most humiliating thing you can do to them. And I wasn't even that great anyway. If I was truly chosen by some cosmic algorithm to come here, it was probably because of my thesis.

It could only be that, realistically.

I was the first person in the world to use the Yugioh game for machine learning purposes in academia, after all. There's no way that I was actually the best. Some nerd somewhere could probably outplay me while blindfolded.

What a fucking joke, picking me for this. I had long ago, migrated to online play. And I barely played even that, these days. Most of my time was spent at my university's computer lab, watching my two AI systems go at it.

It was because of that, wasn't it? Whatever the fuck brought me here got confused because of my masters thesis.

I had used the game Yugioh as a platform for two seperate AI systems. I had created a deck builder AI, that would basically try to create the best possible deck, and I had created another AI, that would use those chosen decks, to duel another copy of itself with it, repeatedly.

The two systems would feed each other their data, and eventually, the plan was to challenge elite players with it. But it was still largely a work in progress. It wouldn't be ready for a while yet. It had pulled off some strange combos, though. And I had actually copied a few of them in online play, but maybe that was why I had been chosen to do this.

I tuned them all out again, and continued looking through the cards in front of me.

There were a few possibilities in here, at least. It took me a few more minutes, but when I was done, I had one decent deck, and one that was mostly decent. Just missing a few key cards. If I had to do a few back to back duels, I would need to be able to swap out cards in between them so that my strategies wouldn't just be countered by the next guy in line that I had to fight.

When I finished a few minutes later, I stood back up, and glanced at the people on the couches behind me. They were still arguing amongst themselves for the most part. That, or they were busy looking depressed.

Leo was looking pathetic, now. The fire under her had died out apparently. She was sat against the wall, with two other women at her side, trying to cheer her up by the looks of it. It almost made me regret what I had said to her, but I crushed that thought, after remembering that everything I had accused her of was true.

I guess she noticed me stand up, because she looked my way, wiped her eyes, and stood up with a sigh and started heading in my direction.

The rest of the room quieted down at the sight, and I felt their eyes lock onto me, again.

Leo looked like she was about to say something, but she hesitated, and changed the subject.

"Are you ready?" I could hear the depression in her voice, but she did a pretty good job of hiding it.

"Not sure, really."

I needed some more information. I had to start getting serious. My expression changed, and Leo picked up on it.

"What do they play?" I asked.

"They won all of their duels so fast that I couldn't tell, really. It involved a lot of extra deck spamming though."

Wow. That didn't narrow it down much at all.

"Banlist?"

"None."

Really? No banlist? That could actually be a problem. I'd have to make some more edits.

"Did they use any broken FTK's?"

"They haven't used Exodia yet."

Thank Christ. That was a relief. I'd have probably gotten my ass kicked by a no-banlist Exodia FTK.

"Rules?"

"Pendulums and lower."

So no links? Perfect. I had never bought any link monsters, and the bullshit extra monster zones had turned me off from the idea pretty quick. Even pendulums were a little whacky in my opinion. But I did use them. Mostly because everyone else did.

I had the cards to make an Exodia FTK deck myself, using Makyura the Destructor. But they were all, once again, in my other case. Dammit woman, you had one job. You could have at least brought that case instead.

"What did they focus on? Pendulum spamming?"

"I didn't actually see most of the duels that were played. Most of them happened simultaneously and in different locations. The few that I managed to see first hand focused more on XYZ summoning."

That wasn't really an answer, but whatever. Pendulum spamming usually led to XYZ spamming...

"Meta?"

"Probably."

Okay. So I was probably up against a couple of broken meta decks that were completely unrestricted by the banlist. There'd be Pot of Greeds everywhere, and Graceful Charities, probably three of each, and stupidly powerful draw engines. I'd be up against the best decks of all time, probably. Like the Dragon Rulers, or some Future Fusion spam deck. Or maybe PePe. God damn, that would be a pain in the ass to deal with if it was powered up by triple Pot of Greeds...

Or maybe I'd have to deal with some cancerous FTK deck. I was really going into this blind, but it'd probably come down to who could out-cancer the other player.

So not really much different than a normal Yugioh game, then. It'd just be faster due to the lifted banlist.

"We can do it though." She tried to sound confident.

We? That's cute.

"We?" I asked. "I think you've got the wrong impression there Princess."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not using you in the duel."

"What!? Why not!?" She shrieked.

"Look," she continued. "I'm sorry I brought you here okay, I know you're mad but I can do this! We can do this!"

"No." My immediate reply took the wind right out of her sails. "You got the wrong idea. I'd use the Lunalights if I had them on me, but you grabbed the wrong case."

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean that I have multiple cases of cards in them, and you grabbed the one containing the shittiest of them all."

"Wha-?" She looked surprised for a moment, but then she caught on to what I had said and looked incensed. "I'm in there!"

So she caught the implied insult? Neat. It was still true.

"But the other Lunalights aren't. And no offence, but you're a pretty shitty card without them to support you." I opened up the case again to make some more edits. Not having a banlist changed everything.

"You have other cases of cards? Since when?" Leo grumbled.

"Oh? I thought you've been stalking me, and would have noticed."

"I'm not a stalker! There is no magic in your world at all, so I barely spend any time there!"

"Could have fooled me," I continued rifling through my cards. "Did you seriously not see what they were playing in the duels that you saw? You clearly understand the meta game to some degree. You're only hurting my odds of victory withholding information like this."

She sighed.

"I'm serious. I've only seen the duels you've used me in, and I didn't recognize any similar strategies."

"I see. So you don't know the meta game prior to just a few years ago, then. You recognize terms like Shaddoll, and Burning abyss then right?"

"Yeah."

"But not Dragon Rulers, TeleDAD, or Magical Scientist FTK?"

The confusion on her face answered my question for me.

I glanced at the people on the couches. I couldn't rely on what Leo had to say.

"How did your guys's duels go? Any sort of information will help."

"What did they play?" I clarified. "PePe? Dragon Rulers? Chain Burn? Any kind of Anti-meta bullshit I need to be aware of?"

"Uh, what?"

That was the only answer I received. God dammit Mr. Orange. These people were totally clueless. As I looked at them, really looked at them, they looked liked deer stuck in the headlights of a car. My conversation with Leo had taken place right in front of them, and they had clearly overheard it, yet they looked totally confused.

It was as if they hadn't heard any of those terms before. Which kind of made sense now. I had always heard other Yugioh players making fun of how broken the anime was. The anime was meant to sell cards to children, not to showcase the metagame. Things were obviously very different between our worlds. And Leo… she had understood me only because she was a creepy stalker, who watched me duel every time I did. She lived in my world, and had learned Yugioh terminology from there. There was probably nothing like it in the Yugioh world, though.

These people couldn't help me out at all either.

"Forget it," I finally said, and I looked away from them. I finished swapping out the last few of my cards, and closed the case again. This would have to do. I stood up. So, these evil duelists were outside then? And all I had to do was open the front door and leave? Fine. There was only one door in the room, and I started walking towards it without another word.

"W-Wait!?" Leo shouted.

I turned around and watched as she ran in the other direction and picked up some weird blue thing on the table, and ran back to try and give it to me.

"What the fuck is this?"

I heard some snorts of disbelief from the crowd next to me at my question.

I ignored them.

"It's a duel disk."

"A what?"

She grabbed my arm, and guided it through the loop on the device.

"Your deck goes in here," She explained, pointing to said location. "These five spaces are where you place your monsters. The five slots here, are for spells and traps. They are also where you place pendulum monsters since there are no separate zones for those. Like the link format, but you know, without the restricted extra deck summoning."

"That's a pretty dumb way to do things."

"It's how things work here."

"Fine." I can deal with whatever bullshit they come up with easily enough. "Anything else you need to tell me?"

"No, that's about it."

"Good, I'm leaving then." This time, I was able to open the door and exit without being interrupted again.

* * *

 **AN: I have no beta reader either, so there may be a few errors here and there. Hopefully not too many.**


	2. Chapter 2: Villainous Cur

**Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh in any sense.**

 **A/N: As with all my stories, there is no update schedule at all.**

 **Also, I should mention that since there is a duel this chapter, I try to avoid as many unnecessary descriptions in them as possible. Effects are mostly implied, meaning characters aren't going to read off what it says on their card word for word aloud and will instead just do the thing that it says to, often skimming over the details.**

 **I did it that way as I didn't want to have to import the exact effects of everything that is going off from the internet word for word into the story. You'll probably see what I mean when you get to that part (if you do). It may be necessary to look up a card or two here and there if you're interested in the details, as a result.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

The constellations were different here.

That was pretty much the first thing I noticed. And it really gave credence to the whole 'in another world' thing.

The second thing I noticed was the group of eight people in cliche villain robes, with hoods masking their faces waiting for me.

The third was the fact that Leo, and everyone else had followed me out.

With a little bit of careful observation, I could tell that the whole 'time stopping' thing was real. Leo had been several meters behind me when I opened the door to leave, but after I had stepped out into the open air, to me, it seemed as if she and all the others had teleported that short gap to join me.

In that single instant relative to me, they could have potentially experienced another thirty seconds or so, relative to them.

"You better not lose." Not-Brock called out, before walking off to the side to watch everything play out.

"Give the guy a break Kaiba, he doesn't need any more pressure from you," some brown haired lady responded. Then she turned to me. "Don't listen to what he says, we're all rooting for you. Good luck. "

…

How fucking fragile did these people think I was?

"So your name is Kaiba?" I spoke to not-Brock, after glancing away from the woman in front of me.

I saw him glance back at me over his shoulder, but he didn't answer.

That was fine.

"What a stupid ass name. Your parents must have hated you. Also you're a c**t nugget, you have a steel rod up your ass, and you need to get laid. But you do have a sweet-ass coat though. It's all angled and shit. Pretty cool."

I spoke totally nonchalantly, before glancing down at the duel disk strapped to my left arm, and turning and walking towards the obvious location I was expected to be at.

They had a fucking arena constructed for this duel. With a huge field that the holographic monsters were going to appear in, and even a place for the spectators.

They all clearly, took this pretty seriously.

This was serious business, here.

Could'a been solved with a gun. All I'm sayin'...

I ignored the gobsmacked expressions that my previous comments elicited on the faces of the cartoon characters behind me, though I did hear someone do the old 'choke on your spit from trying to hold back laughter' maneuver.

Clearly, nobody had ever told Kaiba something like that before, and he had no idea how to even react.

...And then I stepped up to the challenger box, or whatever the hell this thing was.

The podium.

The soapbox.

The stand.

The-

"You…" One of the villains began, cutting off any possible response from Kaiba or the others to my last comment. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Interesting how this was the first time I had been asked that question since coming here. None of the others had bothered with introductions.

I just sat back and stared.

I didn't intend to tell anyone shit, now.

…

It took a little while for him to get the message that I wasn't going to answer, and there was a deathly silence over the arena for a few moments, while I stared the guy down with my typical emotionless gaze.

"Tch. No matter. You'll fall like all the rest." He finally said.

Then, he activated his duel disk, and stepped up to the plate.

...

"I'll go first!" he shouted with a sudden vigour that I honestly wasn't expecting.

Seriously? I don't recall a coin toss happening...

"First, I draw!"

We're playing with 'first person draws' rules too? That was so unfair. The sheer speed of the meta game had forced the people in my world to get rid of that rule entirely.

I took the time to quickly draw my own five cards, and I looked at them.

While planning out my turn, my opponent continued.

"I activate the spell card Tuning! This allows me to add any tuner monster from my deck to my hand so long as I-"

"I know what it does," I interrupted, abruptly.

Was this guy seriously going to explain every last one of his moves?

I could tell that he was frustrated that I had interrupted him, but he continued on.

"Fine then. Now I activate Quickdraw Synchron's effect from my hand, discarding Level Eater, to summon it to the field."

I was actually pretty blown away when the thing came out. After it had been summoned, there was a flash of light, and a giant Quickdraw Synchron appeared. It looked so real, too.

No, it didn't just look real. I watched it carefully as it landed on the ground, disturbing the rocks and sending up a large amount of dust. It also generated a sound when it made contact.

This thing actually _was_ real, wasn't it?

It looked as real as Leo did, anyways.

...Though the thing that had just appeared had a weird blue seal on its forehead, and very dull eyes. A classic and very cliche sign that it was being mind controlled.

My opponent continued.

"Now I summon Junk Synchron! With its effect, I bring back the Salvagent that was sent to my graveyard from the effect of Tuning!"

Just as he said, the two other monsters suddenly appeared on the field. The combined force of their landings actually generated a wind that I was able to feel from where I was standing.

It was actually pretty awesome. This was either some incredibly advanced technology, or these things were actually real. Either way, I approved.

Scientists in my world would go absolutely nuts if they got their hands on these things.

...Then the military would take control of the program, and they'd be deployed in the Middle East.

But in any case, I had no idea what a Salvagent did, so I had to look at its effect.

...You could tribute it when it was on the field in order to summon a synchro monster from the grave, apparently. Its effect would be negated, but that was still a pretty broken card in my opinion.

I could already think of so many uses for an effect like that...

"This activates the effect of Doppel Warrior from my hand, allowing me to summon it to the field!"

It appeared in another flash of light, and just like the others, they all had that weird glowing light on their heads that made me assume that they were being controlled.

That's what mind controlled things looked like in all the anime shows I had watched anyways.

...

So, this was a junk synchro deck then? That meant he was probably going for a Shooting Quasar Dragon.

Those decks always went for that...

I heard some conversation going on from the spectators, so I idly tuned in. It was better than listening to this guy explain all of his moves as if I was blind, anyway.

"Yusei, thats-" The red-headed woman began.

"I know. He's using _my_ cards." Mr. Kneepads replied, his voice carrying over the entire arena.

So the guy with the orange knee pads was named Yusei then, huh?

These guys had the weirdest names.

"I don't understand how he can though," the British, blonde guy from earlier chimed in. "That's _your_ deck. And he really seems to know what he's doing with it."

"It's sickening," another chimed in. "Seeing our monsters being used against us like this. Seeing them being controlled..."

And seeing that guy actually made me pause. Were those two twins? There were two people here with spiky red, blonde, and black hair that was so intricately folded that I almost wanted to say that it was a wig.

But they had slightly different voices. One of them had a softer tone, the one that I had heard earlier inside. But this one seemed a lot more serious.

"I tune my Junk Synchron and Doppel Warrior to synchro summon Junk Warrior!"

You 'tune' them? I mocked in my head, sarcastically.

Nerd.

The two monsters vanished, and the blue robot thing that I recognized as Junk Warrior appeared.

These monsters were incredible to look at. Their Yugioh card pictures really didn't do them justice.

...

But seriously? Junk Warrior?

No Librarian?

"Doppel Warrior's effect activates, summoning two tokens to the field!"

Now my opponent had five monsters on the field.

And I could already see where this was going. I had seen this type of deck in action so many times.

"I synchro summon for eight, bringing out Road Warrior!"

Quickdraw, one Doppel Token, and Salvagent vanished, and Road Warrior appeared in another flash.

...He was going to shave its level down with Level Eater. That was the route he was going for to get a Quasar out, I was pretty sure.

"I activate Road Warrior's effect! Bringing out Unknown Synchron from my deck!"

The grey ball type thing appeared in a flash, and started floating in the air.

"Using Unknown synchron and my second Doppel Token, I synchro summon for two, and bring out Formula Synchron!"

This guy was noisy, and he was _really_ getting into this duel.

The two monsters vanished, and Formula Synchron appeared, leaving just the three monsters on the field.

"Formula Synchron's effect allows me to draw!"

The guy put his entire body into the motion of drawing his card. Picking it up, and throwing his arm straight up into the air dramatically, before looking at it.

...Glancing over at the spectators, I noticed that none of them were laughing, or even amused at all by this guy's antics.

...

Was this normal here?

...Kid's show, right. These guys were from a children's TV show. Of course it was normal here.

I was a little disappointed by this guy though. If he had brought out a T.G Hyper Librarian instead of Junk Warrior, he would have gone plus two, instead of one.

It was inefficient.

"I activate Level Eater's effect from my graveyard!"

There were surprised gasps from the spectators.

...

Seriously? They thought that this was impressive?

"Level Eater lowers Road Warrior's level by one, making it a level seven monster!"

He paused for a moment... and then started laughing.

His laugh turned into a cackle. It was the most stereotypical 'I'm a bad guy' cackle I had ever heard.

Was there some sort of secret club out there? One that trained its members how to laugh like that? I was actually impressed by the acting skill that that required.

...I probably couldn't pull it off myself, anyways.

"Prepare to lose! I activate the spell card Double Summon, which allows me to get an extra normal summon this turn!"

...Did he seriously just explain to me what Double Summon did?

"With it, I summon Drill Synchron!"

The monster that appeared was so creepy to look at. It had the roundest eyes I had ever seen.

"Don't tell me!" I heard Mr Kneepads, Yusei, exclaim from the sidelines. "He's going for it! This is bad!"

It was cute how worried everyone was getting. Quasar was actually pretty easy to deal with. It only had a single effect negation, and it was only really a problem when it was attacking.

I'd have been more impressed if the guy had brought out multiple. But my opponent had already wasted too many resources to bring out any more, in all likelihood. He was down to just his one last card in his hand.

He'd get out just the one, this turn.

He should have summoned Librarian instead, in my opinion. That card let him draw one for every new synchro monster that was summoned, which would have been a much better choice instead of Junk Warrior. It had the same conditions for summoning.

And he had also overextended too much, using far too many resources to get everything out.

"I synchro summon for four, with Drill Synchron and Level Eater, bringing out Armoury Arm!"

The monsters vanished, and the guy's fourth synchro monster appeared in a flash.

"I activate Level Eater's effect again on Road Warrior! This decreases his level even more! He's now level six!"

...And here comes Quasar, I thought to myself.

"Now I synchro summon for twelve! Using Road Warrior, Armoury Arm, and Formula Synchron, I synchro summon... Shooting Quasar Dragon!"

The monsters vanished and the Ground started shaking. A massive Blue Light flashed, and a roar so loud I had to cover my ears echoed across the arena.

...

Fuck, that was loud.

Then the giant dragon appeared, floating in the air. It was also glowing obnoxiously bright. I couldn't even look at the thing straight on.

After a few moments, the wind died down and I could hear again.

There was a moment of silence before it was broken again by the spectators.

"How?!" Yusei began. "How did someone like this master the Limit Over Accel Synchro!"

"Yusei-"

"It can only be mastered through the bonds shared by close friends," he finished.

He sounded like he had just discovered that everything he had ever known was wrong. Like his entire life was a lie.

...But, I was honestly just trying to figure out what the hell a 'limit over accel synchro' was. It sure sounded like a pretty big deal though, whatever it was.

I glanced up at the dragon again through squinted eyes.

It was just so god damn bright. But the dragon itself was gigantic. It wasn't even inside the arena because it wouldn't fit. It was floating a good distance above it, instead. From what I could tell, it was also looking directly down at me.

...If I didn't lack the ability to react to things, I might have actually felt scared.

"This duel is over. He never even had a chance to begin with," Kaiba asserted from the sidelines.

Wow. Seriously? These guys had no faith at all.

I glanced at the interface on my duel disk.

...It allowed me to see the effects of all the monsters on the field at the moment, the number of cards in both of our hands, the number of cards in our graveyards, and our life points.

…

And for a single moment that lasted about two seconds, I panicked. Because the fucking dragon's effect was different.

It was even more broken than usual... but it was still possible to get around.

After my two second internal freakout, I was able to determine that yes in fact, I could still win on my first turn if nothing else on the field changed.

I was basically hoping that this guy didn't put any facedowns on the field.

"I don't know who you are, but your friends are right! This duel is over! Shooting Quasar Dragon is immune to all monster effects and can attack three times! On my next turn, no matter what you bring out, you lose!"

Seriously?

This guy was such a drama queen.

I took another moment to glance at the spectators, and they looked resigned. They had clearly just assumed that I couldn't do anything now.

"It's not over yet," Leo began.

Her comment drew the attention of all the spectators.

"None of you have seen my master duel before. That guy is right. This duel is over. He won't get another turn," She finished with utmost confidence.

…

Where was all of her faith in me coming from? It made no sense at all.

...Part of me wanted to resign right that second though, just to crush her hopes and dreams in an instant, but I figured I would get bitched at so hard, for doing so.

The thought was very tempting and hard to resist though.

…

I sighed.

I hated to admit it, but Leo was technically right.

Unless the last card in my opponent's hand was some sort of hand-trap that negated spells, this was over.

...An Effect Veiler could ruin my day too.

I had read 'negates effect damage' in Quasar's new effect and panicked, because that was the whole point of the deck I was using, but then I had read "...during the battle phase only,' and the panic had immediately vanished.

What a fucking limited effect. This version was arguably shittier than the legal version of Quasar in my world, because it couldn't negate effects unless it was attacking. It was just immune to everything.

"You're delusional," Kaiba said to Leo. "Look at the field, there's no way this guy can overcome a monster as powerful as that."

"I'm not so sure," One of the Yugi's said. The softer toned one. "He's the best isn't he? At the very least, he's from their world too. He might just have a chance."

"That was the monster that defeated you, wasn't it Seto?" The little shit from earlier asked.

So not-Brock's name was Seto Kaiba then?

That name really did sound familiar. I had heard it a lot when I was younger from the kids at school.

These really were the guys from Yugioh.

...I said nothing during all of this. Just listened in while waiting for this guy to formally end his turn.

After another moment of listening to the guy cackling madly, I spoke up for the second time since the duel started.

"You done?" I asked in my typical lazy tone.

The whole duel so far, I had been projecting my typical emotionless face, and I guess this guy finally noticed that I wasn't in panic mode in the face of his shiny dragon.

He looked at me and glared.

"This duel is over."

"Oh? Are you surrendering? That certainly saves time."

"No!"

"Is it my turn then?"

…

"Just play your last card so I can end this."

"'Kay."

I drew my card.

...

I wasn't going to pull off any crazy dramatic poses or speeches like this guy had on his turn.

"Draw," I stated lazily.

I was only going to explain the bare minimum. This guy could just read the fucking screen on his duel disk if he wanted to know what effects were going off.

"Onomatopaira," I stated as I played the spell of that name.

"Discard Gagaga Magician," I declared, and sent the card to my graveyard for the effect.

This duel disk thingy was actually pretty neat. It gave me a screen of all the targets I could select from my deck, and after I chose one, some crazy advanced shuffling mechanism pulled the card to the top of my deck.

I didn't even have to go searching for it.

It went through my deck and I added Gagaga Sister, and Dododo Buster to my hand, after sending my magician to the graveyard.

I knew this combo pretty well, so I started going through it pretty quickly.

"Buster's effect. Special," I declared the type of summon.

I decided to just abbreviate the actions I was taking. If I wanted to summon normally, I would just say 'normal,' followed by the name of the monster that I wanted to summon. Same thing for special summons.

"Normal Sister. Effect," I continued, again, declaring the type of summon, the fact that I was activating Gagaga Sister's effect, and the monsters rapidly appeared before me.

"Add Gagagarevenge."

The shuffler went through my deck and I added the equip spell to my hand.

I immediately activated it.

"Activate Revenge," I abbreviated my new card. "Special Magician from grave."

My previously summoned Gagaga Magician appeared on the field, joining the other two monsters, Gagaga Sister, and Dododo Buster, already there. All of them were facing away from me, and looked as real as the other guy's monsters.

"Magician's effect."

It let me choose it's level.

"Level five," I declared.

"Activate Galaxy Wave." The continuous spell appeared on my field in a swirling yellow light.

"Sister's effect on Magician. Both now level seven."

"Xyz summon Ebon Illusion Magician."

Gagaga Sister, and Gagaga Magician both vanished as I overlaid them, becoming materials for Ebon Illusion Magician.

My new monster appeared on the field.

"Yellow-Bellied Oni's effect from my hand."

That particular monster could be special summoned whenever I Xyz summoned a monster, which I had just done with Ebon Illusion Magician.

"Special as link three. Wave activates as link two, Revenge is one."

I was even kind enough to state the order of the chain links.

Both Galaxy Wave and Gagagarevenge had activated at the same instant that Oni was special summoned, so I had to select which order the effects would activate in, hence the chain links.

Oni was summoned from my hand in defense first, as chains resolve backwards. It was link three and nothing was after it, therefore it resolved first.

"You take five hundred damage," I explained as Galaxy Wave's effect resolved as link two.

Finally, link one was Gagagarevenge's effect...

"Magician's attack is increased by three hundred."

All of a sudden, an energy beam of some kind fired from the circle of light thingy, that had appeared when I played Galaxy Wave, and it slammed into where the other guy was standing, producing an explosion and a gust of wind.

...I was actually pretty concerned that we might take real damage in this game after seeing that, but he looked okay after the smoke cleared, so I continued without pause, at the same pace.

I was going to needle him to death.

Galaxy Wave did five hundred damage every time I Xyz summoned an Xyz monster. So I intended to Xyz summon sixteen times this turn to end the fight without even entering my first battle phase.

"Ebon Magician's effect. Detach Sister, special Gemini Elf from deck," I explained my moves as my duel disk shuffler rapidly searched through my deck again.

I pulled the Gemini Elf out and summoned her in attack mode.

"Oni's effect."

It let me reduce the rank of an Xyz monster, which was necessary for what I was about to pull off.

"Detach Gagaga Magician from Ebon Illusion Magician. Ebon Illusion Magician is now rank six, but loses its attack boost from Revenge."

...The lost attack was a side effect from Oni, but wasn't important.

"Xyz another Ebon Magician using previous as material."

Ebon Illusion Magician vanished, and another one took its place. That monster was cool like that. It could be summoned out with only one material as long as it was a rank six spellcaster. Ebon wasn't normally rank six, but Oni had lowered its rank earlier making it so.

That had been the whole point of that.

"Wave activates. You take five hundred."

Since it was another Xyz summon, my opponent took more damage.

Another energy beam slammed into my opponent, and his life points decreased again. They were at seven thousand now.

...It had only been a handful of seconds since the previous blast had hit him.

He was probably so pissed.

"New Ebon Magician's effect. Special another Elf," I explained again, as I pulled out another Gemini Elf from my deck and placed it in attack mode.

Since this was a different Ebon Magician, it's 'once per turn' special summon effect could be activated again.

All five of my monster slots were occupied now.

Two Gemini Elf's, an Ebon Illusion Magician without any materials, a Dododo Buster, and a Yellow-Bellied Oni.

I continued without delay.

"Xyz summon Daigusto Emeral using Dododo and one Elf."

Dododo Buster, and one of my Gemini Elves vanished, and Daigusto Emeral appeared on my side of the field.

...Which was another Xyz summon. A fact I quickly reminded my opponent of.

"Wave activates. You take five hundred."

My opponent got slammed again, and I heard him grunt at the impact.

...Sixty five hundred points left.

That was how many life points my opponent had.

"Xyz Lavalval Chain."

The same thing that happened with Daigusto Emeral, happened again. My two other level four monsters vanished as I overlaid them, and Lavalval Chain appeared.

"Wave activates," I quickly reminded my opponent. "You take five hundred."

Boom! Another blast of light struck my opponent, and I heard him shout in rage.

...Make that six thousand.

This time, I was able to notice how annoyed my opponent looked after the smoke cleared. He had been hit twice in just a few seconds after all. But before he could shout at me, or complain, or whatever the fuck he was about to do, I continued.

"Lavalval effect. Detach Oni. Send Mezuki from deck to grave."

Lavalval let me select a card in my deck, and toss it into my graveyard. I chose Mezuki because it had a useful effect that could only activate while it was in the grave.

The shuffler went through my deck, found Mezuki, and I placed it in my graveyard.

"Mezuki effect. Banish."

For its effect to activate, I had to remove it from play first. But after I did, it would let me summon Oni again.

"Special Oni from grave."

I was getting used to all of the card movements now, and how the duel disk was responding, so I started to accelerate in my commands.

"Oni's effect," I declared as the monster appeared again.

"Detach Elf from Lavalval. Magician's rank is reduced to six. But it loses three hundred attack."

Again, the attack loss wasn't important.

"Xyx another Magician using previous as material."

That was the cornerstone of the entire loop I was running here. Lower one Magician's rank, so it can be used to summon the next.

Yet another Ebon Illusion Magician appeared on the field, just as the previous one vanished, being absorbed into the new one.

"Wave's effect. You take five hundred."

Boom! The sound sent another shockwave across the arena.

...Fifty five hundred now.

"Magician's effect. Another Elf."

I used Magician to summon yet another Gemini Elf on my field in attack mode.

"Daigusto's effect. Detach elf."

And this was the part that reset everything. Since you could only have a maximum of three copies of a single card, under normal circumstances I'd eventually run out of Ebon Magicians because they were slowly piling up in my graveyard as I used them to summon new ones. I had to use Daigusto to recycle them so that I could continue the loop.

Daigusto let me pick three monsters in my grave and return them to the deck.

"Return two Magicians to my extra deck, and one Gemini Elf to my main deck, from my graveyard."

...Daigusto also allowed me to draw a free card.

"Draw by effect," I stated calmly as I drew another card.

"Xyz summon Number F0: Utopic Future, using Daigusto and Lavalval."

That card could be summoned by using other Xyz monsters, instead of normal ones, so long as they were of the same rank. And since I had no more use for Daigusto or Emeral, I used them for the summon.

"Wave activates. You take five hundred."

...I was intentionally repeating that phrase in the most annoying manner possible.

Boom!

...My opponent had five thousand lifepoints left, now.

"Xyz another Lavalval, using Oni and Gemini Elf."

Another Lavalval Chain appeared on my field.

"Wave activates. You take five hundred."

Boom!

Since it was another Xyz summon, my opponent had forty five hundred life points left now.

I had three monsters on the field currently. Ebon Magician without any materials, an unused Lavalval Chain, and Utopic Future.

"Lavalval's effect. Detach Oni. Send another Mezuki to the grave."

I had three Mezuki's in my deck, and I intended to use them all. It was the best way to get out Oni again, which was the best way to lower Ebon's rank… which was the best way to get out another Ebon… which was the best way to get out more level four monsters to Xyz summon with… which was the best way to lower my opponent's life points when I had Galaxy Wave on the field.

It let me reset the loop.

"Mezuki's effect. Banish. Special Oni from the grave."

"Oni's effect on Magician. Detach elf from Lavalval."

"Magician is now rank six."

"Xyz another Magician on top."

"Wave effect. You take five hundred."

Boom!

...And we're halfway there.

Four thousand life points left.

"Magician's effect. Detach other Magician, special summon Neo the Magic Swordsman."

...I sort of ran out of Gemini Elves, so I had to choose my backup target for the effect. Since I only cared about Gemini Elf due to her type and Level, I could easily substitute it with another monster of the same type and level. Neo worked perfectly for that.

"Overlay Neo and Oni. Xyz Lavalval."

Another flash of light occurred, and another Lavalval appeared.

"Wave effect. You take five hundred."

Boom!

...Thirty five hundred more points to go.

"Lavalval's effect. Detach Oni... third Mezuki to the grave."

...I'd be using that one soon.

"Overlay both Lavalval's. Xyz another Utopic Future."

With that, I now had two different Utopic Futures on the field.

And with that, Galaxy Wave started charging up another attack.

"Wave effect. You take five hundred."

Boom!

...Three thousand points left, now.

"Mezuki's effect. Banish. Special Oni."

That was my last Mezuki in my deck. They were all banished now, which meant I could no longer reset the loop. But that hardly mattered. I didn't need to reset the loop anymore. This strategy wasn't supposed to be infinitely repeatable. Just repeatable enough to take out exactly eight thousand life points.

"Oni's effect on Magician. Detach a material from Utopic Future for its effect."

"Magician is now rank six. Xyz another Magician on top of it."

Once again, I had an Ebon Magician capable of summoning another level four from my deck.

But first...

"Wave effect. You take five hundred."

Boom!

...Twenty five hundred left.

As I continued on, I noticed that the monsters I was summoning started looking confused, weird as that was. A few of them even glanced back in my direction as if they had no idea what I was doing with them.

...Which sort of made sense now that I thought about it. These monsters were real apparently, so from their perspective, they were suddenly being summoned, then moments later they were off the field again, often after doing literally nothing. Only to reappear moments later yet again.

They had probably expected to actually fight in this duel, and were totally unused to being used as stepping stones for bullshit loops.

I didn't intend to do anything with them at all though. They were all fodder for Galaxy Wave, and nothing more.

"Magician's effect. Detach other Magician, summon another Neo from deck."

"Overlay Neo and Oni for Outer Entity Nyarla. Both it, and Wave activate."

At this point I was just trying to Xyz summon as much as possible. My Magician loop wasn't going to work anymore because I had no more Mezukis left in my deck, so I had to get a bit creative to get the last few summons out.

Nyarla had an effect that let me discard any number of card's to increase its rank by one for each card sent.

Nyarla appeared on the field.

"I discard one. Nyarla is rank five, now. Also… you take five hundred."

...Galaxy Wave was putting in work this duel.

Boom!

Two thousand left.

Four more summons to go...

"Xyz Number twenty one: Frozen Lady Justice, using rank five Nyarla as material."

That had been the whole point of raising Nyarla's rank. Lady Justice required it to be rank five.

"Wave activates. Take five hundred."

Boom!

Fifteen hundred left.

"Xyz Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger, using Lady Justice as material."

That was another monster that could be summoned by using other Xyz monsters as material. Which was perfect for this strategy.

The dragon appeared, absorbing Nyarla in the process.

"Wave activates. Take five hundred."

Boom!

One thousand life points left. Two more summons in other words...

...

It was time to end this with some class.

This whole loop had been calculated out months ago for online play, and I was mostly just going through the motions now with it, barely having to think at all. But with all of that time spent calculating the loop out, and with it being common knowledge to the players in my world, it was possible to squeeze in some strange combinations into it.

I was going to pull off one now…

It was totally unnecessary, but it would look cool.

I grabbed the tip of my hat and tipped it downwards to cover my opponent's view of my eyes.

I left my hand there for a moment, for dramatic effect, before performing the last two moves.

My opponent's drama queen nature had rubbed off on me a little...

"Xyz a third Utopic Future, using Magician and Gaia."

"Wave's effect."

Boom!

…

That left me with three Utopic Future's and a Galaxy Wave on the field. Nothing else.

"Overlay all three Utopic Futures, for Number S0: Utopic Zexal…"

...That left me with just two cards on the field. But seeing my three Utopic Future's combining together like that was pretty satisfying, not going to lie.

I said nothing else as my new monster spawned in.

...Because it was over.

I could have mentioned Galaxy Wave again, but I'm pretty sure my opponent was aware of its effect by now.

I simply kept my hat tilted down until I heard the final explosion and my opponent's scream of rage.

Boom!

...

You ain't got nothin' on me, bud.

Get on my level.

...

His shiny dragon vanished without seeing any action at all. I had entirely circumvented it, winning without having to deal with it at all.

But I did realize something in that moment.

It sure would have been a lot harder to win if that dragon had been the legal version of Quasar from my world, instead of the bullshit anime version…

Weird how that worked out.

I guess that's just what happened when you tried to use stupid anime-only cards.

You got wrecked by the combos that had been generated through the combined efforts of the entire online Yugioh community.

* * *

"Wh-what just happened?"

…

"I think he won."

...

"How?"

…

I heard muttered conversation coming from the spectators, so I chanced a glance over there. I had stopped paying attention to them during the duel.

…

Holy hell, did they looked surprised.

Well, all of them but Leo of course.

I don't think I've ever seen a more self-satisfied grin on the face of another human being before.

That grin of her's was disgusting.

"Dude, that was awesome!" Someone shouted.

...It wasn't really directed at me, just more of a shout so that everyone could hear it.

Most of them held their surprise pretty well though. Big Yugi, the slightly taller one with the deeper voice just looked at the arena with wide eyes. A few of the other's were doing the same.

Even Kaiba looked a little shaken that I had ended the duel so fast.

It hadn't taken five minutes.

"You know," Leo began in a haughty tone, "if only someone could have predicted something like this happening…"

As soon as she started talking like that, I tuned her right out again.

…

There were some pretty evident cliques in this group of people, I observed. The spectators had separated themselves pretty clearly.

Kneepads, Mr. Orange, and the British guy were with the red-head, and the _other_ set of twins, the ones with green hair…

The guy from Brooklyn was with the brown-haired girl, some other blonde chick, and the two Yugi's…

Shit. I hadn't really payed that much attention to the crowd of them. It just seemed to keep growing in number. I had counted eighteen earlier, but there may have been more hiding behind the others.

There was yet another group of them surrounding the really depressed looking kid with a massive bush of brown hair. Including _another_ pair of blue haired people, one with glasses, and another with a crazy black overcoat.

They had all been talking amongst themselves this whole time. And it just sort of sounded like white noise to me.

But… now they were all excited and cheerful.

Fuck.

It had been better when they were depressed and quiet.

...

I fucking hated crowds.

* * *

 **AN: I have no beta reader either, so there may be a few errors here and there. Hopefully not too many.**


	3. Chapter 3: The Nag and the Hero

**Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh in any sense.**

 **A/N: As with all my stories, there is no update schedule at all.**

 **This chapter ended up getting split in two. This is basically the first half.**

 **-LeviTamm**

* * *

"I've never seen a deck work like that before."

...I listened in as the spectators continued talking amongst themselves.

If they didn't want me eavesdropping they would have walked further away. Or talked quieter.

"It was like his entire deck was built to do just one thing. Leaving no room for versatility. Yet everything still fit together. I don't know how to explain it," the same guy continued.

"I've never seen anyone do that much in one turn before either. I couldn't even follow it all."

The rest of the spectators listened in, as the guy continued to narrate his thoughts.

"Every time I thought I understood what he was doing, everything would just change. It was impossible to predict just how it would all come together in the end. It was exactly like those guys that we faced earlier. They totally overwhelmed us with the sheer number of effects that they could link together."

"They planned out their moves so far in advance that it bordered on inhuman."

Wow. These guys must absolutely suck at this game if they called _that_ inhuman.

I've seen what a truly skilled player could do before, and I'm not one of them. I had met this Yugioh… _guru_ at that tournament I competed in a while back. He had had an encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much every card effect in existence.

 _That_ guy had been a monster.

...Probably got beat up a lot in school though. Which sucked. That guy would do some great things in the future, I was sure of it. While those bullies would go on to clean the toilets at that guy's company.

If the universe had any sense of karma, anyways.

These people… if they ever met someone like that, they would probably call him a god. They should have picked him for this.

"He was throwing his own monsters into the graveyard without a care, too," the guy with dark blue hair and the black coat chimed in.

Oh? Was that a slight note of disgust I sensed there?

Nerd.

Nobody cares about sending shit to the graveyard, nor should they. Generally speaking, if half of your deck wasn't in there on your first turn, then your deck needed some improvements.

"And he had all of those powerful monsters, but he never even tried to attack with them. He didn't even enter his first battle phase before he won."

...I did know the guy who spoke there though. Yusei. Mr. 'Kneepads'.

I finally looked away and stopped paying attention to them. I could still hear them, but I couldn't tell who was speaking anymore.

"It really _was_ fast. I dont think _I've_ ever seen a duel where someone did that many things in one turn, _either_."

"He just kept going. Kept summoning and summoning again, using his previous monsters to bring out the next ones, all so he could get that Galaxy Wave thing to fire again."

"He didn't bring out those monsters to use their effects to win. He brought them out so that Galaxy Wave could keep shooting."

"It was just a massive loop to get it to fire again and again. He couldn't beat Quasar, so he didn't even try. He just went around it."

Couldn't beat Quasar? How insulting. I chose not to try. That doesn't mean I couldn't...

"It had all been planned out."

"But did you notice?"

"Notice what?"

"That strategy, that could have been used on anyone. It didn't even matter what his opponent had out. He would have won on his first turn no matter who he faced, or what they had. As long as those cards were in his hand, the duel was over the instant Galaxy Wave was out. If he had gone first, his opponent never would have even had a turn."

"Against that deck, I don't know what can even be done to stop it."

"Its structured that way. He came at this duel from a completely different perspective."

...You know, this was kind of awkward actually. Why were they talking about me as if I couldn't hear them?

Also… I failed to see why what I did was worthy of a lecture, or commenting of any kind for that matter. It wasn't particularly impressive.

The spectators continued.

"He didn't even try to summon any signature monsters like Yugi's Dark Magician, or even Yusei's Shooting Quasar Dragon. He built his entire deck around Galaxy Wave, a spell card rather than a monster."

"So what you're saying is, instead of filling his deck with monsters that support each other like we do, his core strategy was to get Galaxy Wave out, and get it to just keep shooting. All he cared about was summoning those XYZ monsters no matter what they were or even if they supported each other or not."

"Exactly. He selected monsters for his deck that could summon out more monsters, not monsters that helped each other out. That's why we kept seeing totally random monsters show up out of nowhere."

"This guy… I thought he said he didn't play Duel Monsters, or that he hadn't in years, anyways. He didn't even know what a duel disk was. But he's probably the most dangerous duelist to face that I've ever seen."

"That duel was brilliant."

"His opponent didn't even stand a chance."

…

These guys would get _wrecked_ by the ten year old kids in my world at this game. I was sure of it.

* * *

"You…"

Suddenly, Mr. Villain started speaking.

I turned to look back at my former opponent.

My emotionless face was in place again, and I just stared.

Idly, I noticed the chatter from the spectators start to die down, as they listened in to what my opponent had to say.

"How did you…"

…

How did I what? Spit it out.

…

"There's no way you could have defeated me! I had Shooting Quasar Dragon! One of the strongest monsters ever!"

…

Wow. What a sore loser.

...Also, Quasar was a piece of shit.

I just stared at him instead of replying out loud. Because I knew it would piss him off.

...

It sure did, and he started screaming and raging, too. With all the might of a rampaging toddler.

I watched in minor amusement for a while, before suddenly, a ball of light appeared next to him.

Its appearance seemed to snap him out of his rampaging toddler mode, and he suddenly looked panicked.

"No! I can't lose them!"

It took me a moment to figure out what was happening, but his cards were disappearing.

He was frantically trying to grab them, but they were disintegrating and slipping through his fingers.

"No, no, no, no, no!" He shouted, and flailed around in a futile attempt to grab them, but they slipped away, floating into the sky.

I thought they were going to vanish entirely for a moment, because why not? The day had been weird enough already, why not a few extra impossibilities?

...But they collected into a ball in the sky instead, and then, weirdly enough, they floated over to me.

The ball of light floated right up to me, and out of curiosity, I reached my hand out to grab it, palm up.

Abruptly, the light vanished and I felt a weight in my hand.

...

Cards.

There were a hell of a lot of Yugioh cards in my hand right now. Leo did mention that the loser of one of these duels, lost their deck…

So, I guess that's what was happening here.

…

They weren't my cards, but I was a pretty curious guy, so I started flipping through them.

Junk, junk, junk, junk... hey, Quasar was in here. The shitty version though… The one I just beat.

...

Wait a minute.

I was supposed to be fighting back to back duels right?

With these cards, I had another idea for my next deck. I couldn't use the same one against the next guy, because he would side in a shitload of cards to specifically counter my last strategy.

And I played this game online every now then, which meant I had experience using cards that I didn't actually own a physical copy of. I knew how to play certain strategies online, that I didn't have the cards for in real life.

One of which, I could actually do now with the new cards in my hands.

I'm sure the spectators wouldn't mind too much if I borrowed some of their shit. If they did mind, then they could go and fuck themselves because I was going to use them anyways.

"Leo!" I abruptly shouted.

...

Well, it wasn't really a shout. More of an abrupt command.

...And holy hell was she _still_ gloating?

She had been going on and on ever since I won that last duel and stopped paying attention to the peanut gallery.

...And I had just interrupted her as she bragged on and on about how awesome I was in that irritating as fuck, prissy tone of hers.

What a fucking loud mouth.

...She was really starting to grate on my nerves. I didn't show it in my expression though.

"Wh-what is it?" She asked, seemingly startled at my sudden command.

"Bring me my case, please."

…

It took a moment for that command to register, and she seemed confused for a moment, before it suddenly clicked.

"R-right! I'll be right back!"

Then she ran back into the weirdly placed house that we had just been in a few minutes ago.

…

Weirdly placed was certainly the right description for it, too.

There was just this pristine house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of wasteland. Some of which, was on fire still, from whatever the hell happened before I got here.

Then there was this arena right next to it, seemingly built for the sole purpose of having duels.

It was about half the length of a full-sized olympic soccer field. And there were two podium type things on either end for the players to stand in.

And it was meant for just two people.

...

It was such a contrast to the way Yugioh was played in my world.

It was sardine-life back in those tournaments.

The guy right next to you always smelled like shit, too. No exceptions. And everyone was just _packed_ into the building.

There were two types of players too, at least that I had noticed in my short experience playing competitively. There was the guy that thought he was way better than you, and who walked around making fun of people for literally anything they could think of, like those who didn't have a fucking play mat with them or some shit. And then there were the cool guys who were just there to have fun.

Nobody here seemed to be like either of them, though.

Everyone here was super serious about all of this all the time.

It was serious business.

...

Leo returned a moment later with my case, and handed it to me.

I grabbed it with a mumbled 'thanks' and popped it open.

...

In my last duel, I had lucked out a lot.

I had drawn all the cards I had needed on my first turn. Which was actually a pretty strange occurrence now that I thought about it.

I had tried to abuse the hell out of the 'no forbidden list rule', and had thrown in triple Pot of Greed, triple Graceful Charity, and triple Upstart Goblin into that deck. And I hadn't drawn a single one of them that whole game.

Yet, I had still managed to get everything I needed.

It was all luck.

...

If only Leo hadn't have brought the wrong case here…

I would have much rather had a more reliable and consistent deck. But they were all in my other case. If I had had that, I would have had my Lunalights, or I could have even built a Madolche, or a Cyber Dragon deck.

Maybe even a Kuriboh turbo deck… That would have been fun to mess around with.

That is, assuming of course, that I wasn't using my Exodia Makyura deck. _That_ deck won duels automatically on the first turn essentially.

...

I was personally, a fan of the more troll-ier decks that everyone else hated dueling against. My opponent's reaction when I ripped out an Exodia deck, and just started drawing cards like a game of Solitaire was way too hilarious to pass up.

...But pretty much all of my other decks would have been more consistent than my last deck was.

But since I didn't have those at the moment, I was stuck using gimmicky OTK's. Decks that there's no way in hell I could win a match with back in my world.

But here, people only played single rounds apparently, leaving no opportunity to side in any counter strategies against their opponents.

...Which meant that these gimmicky OTK's were actually pretty damn effective.

Especially against people who shit their pants when they saw a Quasar come out...

I had plans to use a different OTK deck this time if I had to duel someone else right away, and I was just finishing up building it now.

"I've never seen you play like that before…" Leo finally grumbled out, sounding irritated.

…

And here we go again. What the hell was this going to turn into?

...Why the hell was she even still next to me?

But… I humoured her.

I could _feel_ that this conversation would quickly spiral into an argument, and I began mentally preparing some lines for it in advance.

"Play like what?" I asked.

She was about to respond, but she was immediately interrupted by one of the villains on the other side of the field.

"I hope you haven't thought that you can leave here." One of them suddenly stood up and activated his duel disk.

Hoh? I've been sitting here building a deck right in front of you. Did it really look like I was leaving?

"We can't let you leave with those cards." Another one stood up and activated _his_ duel disk also.

…

Interesting.

A two v one?

"Wha-! No! He's not going to duel both of you at once!" Leo shouted in concern.

...

Leo's against it?

I tipped my hat down.

...It's decided then.

She continued.

"He has no reason to-"

She was immediately interrupted by the sound of my duel disk activating, and me accepting their challenge.

"Duel," we all stated simultaneously.

...

I had to beat eight of these guys? It would be quicker this way. Also, in a lot of cases, having a teammate was detrimental and actually decreased your odds of victory. They were shooting themselves in the foot with these rules.

Teammates often roadblocked each other by clogging up the field with monsters that didn't cooperate with each other.

"Wha-!"

...There was that trademarked Leo-squawk again. It was a little higher pitched this time though, and had a tinge of hysterical outrage to it.

But wasn't she supposed to be a cat? What the fuck was she making noises like that for?

I glanced at her.

...

Clearly, she wasn't too impressed with my actions. In fact, that was an understatement.

She openly glared at me for a few moments, looking beyond frustrated at the fact that I had just flat out disregarded all her concerns without a care.

She was clearly ruffled, like a dog who had had all of its fur aggressively rubbed in the wrong direction.

Her teeth clenched, her fists were white knuckled, and she looked like she was trying to burn a hole in me with her eyes.

...I stared right back with my emotionless, unimpressed face.

Then she started fuming, and went on another tirade. Trying to lecture me about being reckless or some shit. Steam was practically shooting out of her ears.

...I of course, wasn't listening at all.

I had immediately tuned her out the instant her word hole had opened and started flapping.

...

This would be an interesting duel, I thought to myself as I stared blankly and unfocused into the void of space between Leo and I, as she nagged on and on.

If I could get the combo rolling, this would be an easy win, though it would get a bit technical and complex. If I couldn't, I'd lose unbelievably quickly. But if I did lose, from what I've been able to tell, the only cards I'd lose would be the ones I'm currently using.

So I'd still have the deck I used last duel for the most part if I lost, as a backup. I'd just really be losing the Pot of Greeds, Graceful Charities and Upstart Goblins that I had transferred over to this new deck… which would be a setback, but not impossible to recover from.

...And I'd lose the spectator's cards again. The newly liberated ones. And that would actually be pretty funny.

How would they react to that?

...I bet it would be hilarious.

But I wasn't actually entirely sure if that was how it worked. Some of those cards I had just won and sided into my next deck weren't in my opponents last deck as far as I could tell. Maybe it wasn't as simple as losing makes you lose just your deck, but instead makes you lose everything. All of your cards. That would actually suck if it were true...

Or maybe you would just lose all the cards you had won off of others in this weird tournament.

The rules that Leo had explained earlier had been pretty vague.

"...Are you even listening!?"

For fuck's sake, just shut the hell up Leo. Nobody cares.

I clenched my jaw, and put my trolling mask in place again.

...

If she wanted to be noisy, then I'd give her something to be noisy about.

"No," I stated bluntly.

She squawked again in outrage at my unexpectedly direct reply. But before she could respond, I interrupted her, speaking directly to her face.

"Man, if only you weren't splattered with chocolate milk stains everywhere, your argument may have actually been worth listening to. But since you're covered in stains, smell like dairy products, and look like a crusted rag, it's clearly the case that your opinions have no value anymore."

I continued.

"Also, you're a woman. Therefore, you have no idea what you're talking about, and everything you have to say should be immediately dismissed as uninformed garbage."

Oh yeah… _this_ would do it.

If this didn't piss her off royally, I would have to pull out the big guns.

"So be silent woman. My opponents and I are having a conversation."

I finished my obviously absurd explanation in the lingering silence with a voice full of conviction.

" _Men_ are talking."

…

Holy shit she looked pissed now. It almost made me smile.

Hook line and sinker, she fell for it.

Her eyes had widened in fury during my explanation.

...

She tried to say something in response… but nothing came out.

Then she tried again… and then seemed to change her mind.

I had completely shut her down.

I watched her facial expressions pretty closely during this as well, and they went through this crazy and elaborate process. She looked absolutely furious at first, but the instant I thought she was about to blow her stack, she just sort of deflated and looked incredibly self conscious. Then she just sank into what looked to be a depression, looking completely lost.

Her glare had melted, and she avoided my gaze, looking down and to the side in attempt to avoid any sort of eye contact.

...

She clearly had no idea how to even react to what I had just said to her. Evidently, she had never faced such blatant misogyny before.

...Not even the trolling type that I had just used on her. The type that didn't even try to be serious or defensible in any form and was used primarily for shock value, and to fish for reactions and outrage from people who took themselves way too seriously and needed to be lowered a couple of notches.

...

She deflated and looked at the ground in a manner that looked so pathetic and made her look so miserable that I actually sort of regretted saying that a little bit.

Did she actually think I was being serious? I just wanted to piss her off. Not make her super depressed.

I felt a bit like shit, now.

...But then I remembered the fact that she had kidnapped me without permission, and also without checking up on my dog first.

That quickly flipped my view of the situation right back around again.

If I hadn't fed him an hour or two before getting kidnapped, he would have gone without food until either I returned from wherever the hell I was now, or my parents made it home three days from now. Whichever came sooner.

She could have unintentionally starved my dog with her negligence and that sort of pissed me off. It was in fact, one of the main grudges I've been holding against her this whole time, and it was the main reason why I've been going out of my way to give her such a hard time.

My dog was a bit of a fatty, and he would have made it through something like that just fine, but that wasn't the point.

I didn't even really care all that much that I was brought here. Certainly not as much as I was making it seem, anyways. I had actually been pretty bored, and this situation was certainly interesting if nothing else. I was just really trying to make her feel as guilty as possible using that as a convenient excuse.

My dog though... She had crossed the line there.

...

So it was good that she was upset, I decided.

That's what happens when you decide to kidnap someone, I suppose. It was what she deserved.

"Why?" She finally asked with a defeated tone.

I responded immediately.

"Why what?"

"Why do you hate me so much?"

Interesting how she has to ask a question like that. It isn't obvious? She can't even make a guess?

"Why do you think?" I asked.

"I didn't mean for this to happen, okay! I was only trying to help!"

"Yeah? Help who?"

"Everyone!"

"Horse shit. Clearly not everyone. You certainly aren't helping me."

"I didn't have a choice! Thousands of people's lives are at stake here, and you were the best!"

"The best? Says who?"

"Says me!"

…

"I see. So you thought I was the best, and decided to bring me here yourself, huh? There's your answer right there then. We could have talked. You could have chosen to _not_ kidnap me. It's clear that your subjective standard about what's good, is shit. That's what caused all of this."

...Mostly because of my dog though. But I decided to leave that part out.

"You should have picked someone better," I finished.

"There aren't any duelists better than you!"

Wow. What the fuck? I thought I was pretty clear earlier when I said I sucked at this game.

"Bullshit. I'm a terrible duelist. I quit a long time ago."

"You've never lost!"

I blinked.

…

"What?" I asked.

And seriously… What the hell was that about? She can't be serious.

"You've never lost a duel before! Out of everyone in your world you have the most wins, while having never lost before!"

"That's such bullshit. I've lost plenty of times."

"When?! Name one time!"

Seriously?

"There was that time where I… Okay. In that tournament where I…"

I stumbled on my words as an example eluded me for the moment.

"Where you what?" Leo pressed. "Where you won every single match right until the end?"

...

"...Okay, I did win that tournament," I eventually admitted. It was true after all.

"You were undefeated in that tournament!"

"...But I played plenty of informal matches earlier that same day," I explained. "I didn't even use you and the Lunalights in all of them either. I remember bringing my Madolche deck there too, and that deck was incomplete and was a piece of shit at the time as a result. I definitely got my ass kicked there. I had to have."

"No you didn't!" She denied. "You beat every single duelist who ever challenged you whether you were using me or not! The only occasions you have ever not won, were the times that you drawed your opponent."

"There's no way that's true at all."

"It is!"

"What about all of my online duels? I've had to have played _thousands_ of them by now. I've been playing for years."

"And you've never lost any of them!"

"What the hell? How can you even attempt to make a claim like that? That's like, 2,000 games."

I continued.

"Things don't work like that. There's no such thing as a duelist that has never lost unless their brand new at the game. I've screwed around with so many random ass decks over the years that I had to have lost at least once somewhere."

" _At least_ once," I emphasized. "I've probably lost dozens of times. Hundreds even."

"Name one!"

Thick-headed...

"You're missing the point…"

"Name one time!"

...

"Just because I can't name a time off the top of my head at this moment doesn't mean it's never happened."

"Now who's talking bullshit?! What kind of duelist can't name a time they've lost?!"

"Me, apparently. Why is that surprising? Do you remember what you had for breakfast exactly 301 days ago? No? I thought not. You probably couldn't answer that question if it were just two weeks ago."

"And how could you even make that claim anyways?" I asked. "You haven't even seen all of my duels."

"That doesn't matter! I know that you've never lost!"

"How?"

"Because I didn't pick you to come here!"

How was that even relevant? Also... was she serious? I could have sworn that she had said: ' _we_ summoned the best duelist _,'_ earlier. Emphasis on the 'we'. Which naturally made me assume that she had been directly involved in the decision.

"You didn't?" I asked.

Then how did I get here?

"No!" She exclaimed. "I was as surprised as you were that we ended up getting picked to help out everyone like this! The details are long and tedious to explain, and I know you hate those types of rambling explanations, but basically the method used to bring you here selected the best duelist. Nobody knew who that would end up being."

Sometimes… rambling explanations were important. I might have to get some more details out of her soon. This story was weird.

"I ended up getting called a few hours ago for this, which meant that you had been picked," Leo explained.

"So someone else picked me then, is what you're saying?"

"No!" She denied. "Nobody specifically picked you. They picked the best duelist, and you just happened to be it!"

"That's some pretty vague criteria. How do you determine who the best is? If it's about the win-loss ratio, then what about all the people who have never played the game before in their lives? They've never lost."

"Best is defined as the person that has the most matches won out of all duelists who have never lost," she explained.

...I had to roll that explanation around in my head a little bit to make sense of it.

' _The person that has the_ most matches won _out of_ all duelists who have never lost _.'_

 _..._

I thought over those words a couple of times, before it made sense.

"Okay," I said. "That makes a little more sense now, but it's still bullshit. There's no way I'm that guy."

That was also a stupid way to select the 'best duelist', in my humble opinion.

"You are, dammit! What would it take for you to finally believe that!?"

…

You know? Now that I've really been thinking about this… I really couldn't think of a time I've actually lost. Granted, I don't remember most of the duels I've ever played, just the ones where crazy or hilarious things happened, but still.

I couldn't remember a time off the top of my head. A lot of close calls, but I couldn't actually remember one where I actually ended up losing.

But that was crazy… I had to have lost somewhere. What would the odds be if I literally had a perfect winning streak? That would be comparable to winning a couple of back to back lotteries in terms of probability.

...

"Holy shit," I said in realization. "Have I seriously never lost before?"

"Yes!" She cried. "That's what I've been telling you this whole time!"

"Okay," I said, settling in for a lengthy explanation. "Even if that's somehow true it isn't due to skill on my part. It's totally random. The way that you defined 'best' there, ensures that there will always be someone to fit that criteria. At minimum, someone who has only played a single game in their life and won, could theoretically be that duelist."

I continued.

"If you lined up all of the people who have ever played a game of Yugioh on Earth, you'd end up with a shitload of people."

I was basically going to explain a variant of the coin toss experiment. The one where a million people guess what side a coin lands on and everyone who guesses wrong sits down, and where the remaining people continue to the next round, repeating until only one guy is left who guessed correctly a shitload of times.

It was guaranteed for that guy to exist, but to be him would take an astronomical stroke of luck. I was basically that guy in this situation, if what she was saying was true. And she was trying to claim that it was somehow skill related for me to get there.

"...Then if you asked every one of those people who have played less than 10 matches to sit down, you'd still have a bunch of people. Probably thousands at least. Then you could ask everyone left standing who has ever lost a game to sit down, and you'd still be left with a handful of them, many of whom have gotten where they were totally by chance. People who had gotten extraordinarily lucky."

"They would have all had to win even the first game they ever played when they were still learning the game," I said. "And they would have had to just repeatedly face off against really bad players their whole lives. Or people that were at least, worse than them. Or unluckier anyways."

"By probability alone," I continued, "there have to be cases like that out there considering the sheer number of people that play this game."

And by a similar argument, there had to be people out there who had played hundreds of games and lost them all. Even if they had tried their hardest in every one of them.

"But the point is, out of all the people left over at the end in this thought experiment, you could just grab the person who was still standing that had the most wins and-"

"And that person is you," Leo interrupted.

"...Wow. Okay. So I basically won some sort of stupid lottery without ever noticing, and now I'm here. A shit lottery. One that gives whoever won it a bucket load of shit to deal with. To swim in. To eat. Neat."

"Stop saying that!" She complained. "It wasn't luck at all! You're incredible! The greatest duelist that I've ever seen! I couldn't have asked for a better master if I was free to choose a new one myself! You're as close to perfect as it's possible to get!"

What the hell was up with her glorious view of me?

With one look at her face and I was able to tell one thing.

...She was absolutely serious. What the hell was she idolizing me for?

Why?

"And I'm your deck spirit!" She continued. "I can't bear it when you're mad at me! When you hate me!"

There were tears in her eyes now.

...Great.

"So just please tell me what I have to do to make things right!"

"I know you." She claimed. "I know that this situation must have seemed crazy and unbelievable at first. You've never been exposed to magic, or anything at all from my world before, but is doing this really that bad? You're literally saving hundreds of thousands of lives by doing this! Do you really not want to help?"

"That's not the point," I replied. "You kidnapped me to get me here, and now you're attempting to guilt trip me to make me stay. If you had walked up to me and just asked, this whole thing could have been avoided."

"Really?" She asked skeptically. "If I had just walked up to you and asked nicely you would have agreed just like that?"

"I think you seriously underestimate how easily stupidity reflects off of me. As ridiculous as this situation is, I've heard weirder stories."

I really have.

...She had no idea.

I cleared my throat.

"On a top ten list of stupidest things I've ever heard of in my life, this entire situation in general _is not even ranked_ ," I explained.

"There aren't any time travelling aliens around. There aren't any man-eating television screens. I have even heard a story once about a fire breathing dragon going on a quest to have sex with a Volkswagen Beetle."

Rule 34 was absolutely true and she had no idea. And I think that every single one of the spectators of my last duel falls under it, Leo included.

Maybe not the anonymous villains or me because we weren't famous, but only because of that. Absolutely everyone else there… Yugi, his friends, Kaiba, Mr. Kneepads and his friends, and everyone else… they all probably had entire websites in my world dedicated to them that would make them vomit in horror if they ever stumbled across them.

And incidentally, dragons and cars were involved there as well.

The specific model of the car was actually important in that story, as the dragon had very refined, and particular tastes. Not just any car would have sufficed.

"This scenario," I said, "doesn't even register as a 5 out of 10 for me on the stupidity scale. I have become absolutely desensitized to it all."

That was what happened when you became a denizen of the internet.

"Someone like you couldn't surprise me with a story that is too ridiculous to consider if you tried," I explained. "My mind has been conditioned against absolutely anything you could ever come up with."

"It would not have taken much effort at all to convince me of something like this. Especially considering you're a weird cat lady with a sword fetish who loves playing Duel Monsters, _and_ you physically exist in front of me to demonstrate these things first hand."

"Wha-! Weird Cat Lady?" Leo interrupted, objecting to my description of her.

I paused my explanation for a moment after hearing her response..

…

' _So… you're not going to object to anything else I said? Just that bit?'_ I wondered, as we continued to look at each other for a couple of moments.

I eventually broke the silence again.

"...Also you can fly. Or hover at the very least. That alone would have done most of the work on the road to proving your case."

"Is that _really_ the reason?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Is that really the reason why you hate me so much? That I just didn't ask you properly? How was I supposed to know how you would have reacted?!"

"Well you've been stalking me for one…"

"That doesn't mean I can read your mind!"

' _Ha.'_ I let out a singular, unenthusiastic laugh within the confines of my own mind. She totally didn't deny the fact that she was stalking me.

But...

"… I suppose that's a fair point," I conceded.

She may be a crazy cat lady, but maybe mind reading was a bit too much to ask. She clearly didn't know me very much at all then, if she thought that it was necessary though.

…

"So… is it?" She asked hesitantly.

"Is it what?"

"The reason! Please just tell me already, I can't take this anymore!"

Fine. Might as well tell her, then.

"No," I replied.

"Then tell me why! Please!"

"You left my dog behind."

...

"...What?" She asked after a lengthy pause, clearly baffled.

Clearly, she hadn't expected me to say something like that.

"You kidnapped me," I clarified. "By doing so, you might have put my dog in danger without a care. Who do you think feeds him?"

There was a moment of outraged silence as she processed what I just said.

"Do you really think that I would forget that!?" She cried. "That dog is the cutest thing! I'd never leave him to starve!"

"You did."

"No, I didn't!"

"Oh? You took care of everything?"

"Yes!"

"How did you manage that? He hates visitors. He also hates cats. And women. You're like, all of those things rolled into one. He'd chew someone like you a new asshole if you tried to get close to his food dish."

"He'd probably think you were an oversized chew toy the instant he laid eyes on you as well," I continued. "What with the purple skin, the massive mane of light blue hair you got there, and the crazy golden hoopy things that follow you around..."

 _That_... or he would have pissed himself in fear. He's done that before. It was really hit or miss with that dog.

"...He wasn't in the room at the time," She replied.

' _That's right,'_ I remembered. He was sleeping upstairs in my parent's room. I forgot about that.

"Oh yeah, that's right. He was upstairs sleeping."

"So, wait," I continued. "You broke into my house, carefully snuck around my kitchen to make sure my dog wasn't nearby, ransacked my pantry, filling my dog's food dish extra high with three days of food, replaced the newly filled dish, all while I was in my room with my headphones on... then you came into the hallway where you came at me with a sword?"

I tried imagining all of that in my head, while observing the irritation rapidly build up on her face at my description of what had happened.

"...Nice strategy," I finished.

"For the last time, I didn't break into your house!" She shouted.

"You did."

"No I didn't! Ugh! You're insufferable!"

"I also find it interesting how that's the bit you're hung up on as well. You only deny the part about breaking into my house. Nothing at all about ransacking my pantry or snooping around my kitchen."

"Why do you always describe everything I do in such a way as to make me seem like some sort of shady criminal?!"

"Why do you always describe everything I do in such a way as to make me seem like some sort of god?"

"That's totally different!"

"No it isn't."

...Our argument got interrupted.

"Are you two done yet?!" One of the villains finally shouted in irritation at the lengthy delay.

We both responded simultaneously.

"Yes."

"No!"

I glanced at Leo again.

"We aren't?" I asked.

"No!" She denied. "I didn't _starve your dog_ , okay? I can't believe you thought that I would be that careless! But he's fine, and he has all the food he needs. _And_ water too!"

Leo then looked at me with an expectant look on her face.

I sighed.

"...Well I guess that removes most of the reasons then. Promise to do one thing for me when this is all over, and we'll call it even."

...If my dog took a crap in the house before I got back, woman, guess who's going to be picking it up?

Not me, that's for damn sure.

She looked relieved, oblivious to my thoughts.

"Okay! Anything at all!"

Wow. She didn't even ask what I was going to demand her to do when we got back. Maybe I should 'demand' her to do two things now. Or more. She should really be more careful.

My house could be absolutely spotless if I got her to clean it up and scrub it down. It was generally a pretty clean place... but I could put a little effort into making it a little dirtier just for her. There was this perfect mud pool in the field just outside my house, and I could coat my hiking boots in it and walk all over the carpets in them. And to throw extra insult in her direction, I could then get her to make me sandwiches and bring them to me on demand.

That'd piss her off something fierce, I'd bet.

...Oh yeah. I could have some fun with this.

"Good. You can go away now. I'd like to be able to concentrate without you nagging at my side."

"Nagging!? I don't nag!"

...

Wow. I didn't even know how to respond to that one. What she said was so unbelievably delusional that I had no immediate response.

I could do nothing but just smile at her _next level_ obliviousness.

...Her picture is in the dictionary next to the definition of the word.

Nag. Verb. To speak in the manner of Lunalight Leo Dancer. Then there's just a picture of her mugshot.

She looked like she was about to go on another rant, so I started the duel before she could say or do anything else.

I glanced towards my opponents.

...They hadn't gone yet, so I guess that meant it was my turn to go first.

I drew my five cards and for a moment, almost forgot to draw my sixth.

...That 'first person draws' rule was so broken.

I looked at my cards.

...

Two seconds later, I was able to determine that the duel was pretty much over by that point.

I won.

…

"Hey! This conversation isn't over! Don't ignore me!"

"Yeah it is. I'm playing cards now. You also smell like spoiled milk so if you could take a few steps back that'd be great."

"Wha-! And who's fault is that?!"

"Yours. Why did you think it was a good idea to go for a swim in my chocolate milk glass? Now shut up please. I've had enough of your whiny, shrieking, nagging voice. It's disgusting, vile, and an abomination that needs to die in fire. I can only take so much of it at a time."

Her voice really was weird. It had a strange accent I had never heard before.

"It's not even close to being as bad as you've described!"

"It really is like alcohol in that sense. Have a little and you get woozy, a little more and your head spins. More still and you eventually black out. Too much and your liver shuts down."

You will never beat me in an argument, woman. It's about time you cut your losses.

"Grrr, fine! I'll go! Just make sure you don't lose!"

She began to stomp away, still fuming in pent up irritation.

She stopped after a few steps though and spoke up in a hesitant and soft voice.

"...But promise me you won't do anything that reckless again."

"No," I replied without hesitation.

I didn't even care what she was referring to, there. She was probably talking about me accepting to fight a two on one duel without a care, but even if she were referring to something else, my answer wouldn't have changed.

Because _she_ was the one who had asked, the answer was automatically no.

"Wha-!"

"I'll absolutely do things that reckless again."

Just because she told me not to.

"In fact," I continued, "you haven't seen anything yet. Prepare to be amazed in the future. And if anything, you telling me not to lose is making me want to lose deliberately just to see what you'd do, so I suggest you don't ask something like that again."

"Now get back already," I said. "I have a children's card game to win."

* * *

 **AN: I have no beta reader either, so there may be a few errors here and there. Hopefully not too many.**


	4. Chapter 4: Trishula's Rampage

**Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh in any sense.**

 **A/N: Well this one took a while. Sorry about that. Real life happened, and I've been simultaneously writing a bunch of other stories, some of which aren't published on this site yet, and some of which are actual original.**

 **But here it is, the second duel.**

 **Hope you enjoy.**

 **-LeviTamm**

* * *

"You done with your lovers spat yet?" The villain across from me asked.

I raised my eyebrow.

"Lover's spat? Way to make things weird, bud."

That hadn't been an awkward question at all. I hadn't even thought of Leo as a woman at all before that moment. Just a weirdo who had clearly had a few too many breast implant surgeries.

Seriously. She must have unbelievable back pain. Or at least, abs of steel to keep herself balanced.

"She's your duel spirit though isn't she? Yet you didn't use her at all in the last duel. Why is that?" The anonymous villain asked.

I too would like to know the answer to that, Leo. Why didn't you know about my other case of cards?

I almost sent a glare her way after remembering her error.

"A worthless duel spirit for a worthless duelist," the villain's partner chimed in.

"You got lucky in the last duel. That was all. We underestimated you and made a stupid mistake. But if that was the best that you can do then you're going to lose."

"You got that right," I replied, unimpressed. "I suck so bad, two of you need to fight me at once to make it fair."

"Why you…"

"That's enough!" The eviler of the two villains shouted. "You know, you seem pretty attached to that spirit. Her name is Leo right?"

I think 'attached' is taking it a step too far. I literally met her like 10 minutes ago.

"I think I'm going to kill her first," the villain said.

I almost rolled my eyes.

' _Here we go…'_

I had heard it all before. Another cliche line from a cliche villain.

"When I get my hands on her card, I'm going to rip it to pieces. I'll see to it that she dies right in front of you."

My retort was interrupted by a series of horrified gasps from the spectators.

"How could you do that?!" One of them shouted from the sidelines. "You're a monster!"

"The spirits of this world have a single purpose in life. To die at my feet for my entertainment," the villain continued his monologue.

"All of your cards, all of your friends, all of _her_ friends," he pointed at Leo as he said this, "they are all going to die and I'm going to make you all watch."

I stared at the spectators in disbelief for a few moments. Wondering how it was possible for someone to be so outraged by a cheesy line like that.

I broke the silence myself with a flat, monotone response.

"Damn, that's hardcore man. I am truly shook."

I didn't sound shook at all.

"Shut up! I've had enough of listening to your petty sarcasm! You have no skill at all as a duelist! You have to rely on cheap tricks to do anything at all! You have absolutely no value as a human being! I've spent years training for this! Years training under the king himself!"

My god, what a whiny bitch this was. Somebody's triggered...

"You're nothing compared to him!" The villain continued. "You think I'm just playing around?! What is the worst thing that you can think of right now?! What is the thing that you value the most?! What action can I take to make you suffer to the greatest extent possible?!"

"I will find it," he claimed.

"Do I have to take all your cards? Do I have to kill your duel spirit?"

"Or maybe…" he speculated, "that's too quick. I have something else lined up for her."

"I think I'll keep her as my pet. Forget killing her, I have a way to make her my slave. A way to take control of her mind. I'll do that."

"Then she'll serve my every whim every single day for the rest of her life. I'll even use her against you. Then when she has no more use to me, I'll throw her out like the piece of trash that she is."

"How about that? How's that for 'hardcore'?" The villain finally finished his crazy, rambling rant, throwing my own words back at me.

The spectators were horrified. And they all collectively glared at the villain that had just finished speaking. Many, with their fists clenched.

I however, was unruffled.

"Nah. I think you can do better."

This guy was so lame. And so were the spectators actually, for letting themselves get so outraged by this wannabe.

"What?!"

"Stop trying so hard to be edgy. It's cringey as fuck. You have no idea how to be evil at all, do you? If I had the same goal as you do, whatever the hell it even is at this point because who the hell even knows?... I would do a way better job of tearing this world down than you are."

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some of the spectators' eyes widening at my response, and their surprised gazes locked onto me.

"I actually know how to be evil," I said. "I know all the tricks of the trade, as it were. I would be an absolute nightmare to the spirits of this world if I actually tried to be, and if I were in your position. I'm willing to bet that the people of my world have a far greater capacity for evil than the people of yours do, if what I'm seeing now is any indication."

What would the people here think if they read up on any of the shit that Stalin pulled back during World War 2?

Or Hitler around the same time?

Or Mao?

How about the shit that went down in Nanking? Or Nanjing, or however the hell that place was supposed to be pronounced.

I was actually curious what the worst atrocity in their respective alternate realities was, now. Did they have a Hitler equivalent? Did their world share a similar history to mine? Or was the worst thing that ever happened to them somehow card-game related?

"You have no idea how deep that rabbit hole goes," I said.

"Do you know why I know that?" I asked, rhetorically. "Because you based your entire plan around a card game. The fact that some random, piece of shit _nobody_ like me, can walk in here and fuck up your plan just by knowing a thing or two about a card game isn't something to be proud of."

"If I was in charge of you people, if I was whoever your boss is, none of these people would have been allowed to be here," I said, gesturing to the spectators. "None of my plans would depend on beating anyone in a duel, and I would have won this war without anyone ever knowing it even happened."

"Just one day... bam!" I clapped my hands together to emphasize the point. "All the duel spirits are gone and everyone in a position to notice is left scratching their heads."

"There would be no opportunity for some wannabe hero to show up and save them with a deck of playing cards, because they'd all be dead. I'd have killed all the spirits long ago."

"How is it that you have even allowed me to be here?" I asked. "The sheer incompetence that you have demonstrated by that alone is immeasurable."

"You think I should be at all scared of someone like you?" I continued.

"Fuck you," I said. "Go and fuck yourself with a plastic rod, buddy."

"You don't know jack shit about anything at all."

And wasn't that the truth.

Then, for good measure, I threw in one last jab.

"...And my duel spirit would knock your ass right out with her magic superpowers if you tried literally anything that you just described, to her. She'd lay you right out like a carpet."

I watched the villains across from me start to stammer, as they tried to respond to what I just said.

It was clear that they were hoping I'd fold up under their threats like a paper crane.

"You…! You…! Insolent…!"

"Just stop talking. Nobody cares."

It was about time to actually start this duel.

Calculating it out, I realized that I just barely had the margins to afford playing a single Upstart Goblin. I didn't really need to, but it would make things a little smoother. I could still win with the lifepoint disadvantage that the card would give me.

I activated it, and said nothing more as I drew my card from the effect.

I wasn't going to verbally explain anything at all. This asshole could watch the duel disk interface if he was confused.

There wasn't any way to cheat on these things anyway. The duel disk wouldn't allow you to make illegal moves, so explaining what you were doing as you did it was really just a formality.

I hadn't known that during the last duel, so I had defaulted to my old tournament habits of explaining what I was doing to avoid any confusion.

I looked at my hand again.

I had two Pot of Greeds and a Graceful Charity, now. That's an automatic plus seven essentially, since the stuff I was ditching into the graveyard with Graceful needed to be there anyway for it to be useful later on.

...This duel disk was actually so uncomfortable to wear.

So I pulled it off my arm.

As long as I didn't remove my deck from it, and still played my cards on it as if I was wearing it, I could get away with taking it off.

It was just so restrictive and slowed me down.

I walked around the podium in front of me without a word, right up to the edge of the arena, and right up to the massive drop into it.

Our positions were elevated a fair amount. Enough that if I were to jump off the edge in front of me, into the arena, it'd probably take me about 3-4 seconds to hit the floor.

We were pretty high up.

I sat down on the ledge, my legs dangling into the arena to get comfortable and I placed my duel disk on my lap.

I wanted to free up both of my hands so I could play my cards easier. I was completely not used to using just one arm to do everything with.

I also felt like sitting down. Even though this duel wouldn't take very long at all.

* * *

Leo had rejoined the spectators, though her attention was planted firmly on her own two feet, in an attempt to hide the blush prominently displayed across her entire face at hearing everything that her master had just said.

"...Well, that's one way to shut someone up, I guess, " she heard someone beside her say.

Leo continued to listen in as the spectators started talking.

"No kidding. That was crazy! This guy is ruthless."

"You mean he has a foul mouth. I haven't heard anyone swear as often as he does in my life."

"Well it worked didn't it?"

"I guess anything is better than listening to that other guy talk."

...

"Wait… what is he doing?"

They all watched as the so called 'best duelist' took his duel disk off his arm and sat down in front of the podium, legs dangling over the edge.

"Is he going to duel like that?"

"Looks like it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

* * *

I closed my eyes for about ten seconds just running through the combo in my head and preparing as much as I could.

This was going to get intense.

I took one last deep breath, held it, and sighed.

…

Then after a final few seconds of silence, without explaining any of my actions aloud, I began.

I played double pot. Two Pot of Greeds, one after the other.

My duel disk made the typical effect sound that played whenever an effect was activated, and there were some flashing lights on the field as the cards I just played revealed themselves briefly, before they disappeared.

Then I silently drew four cards.

...Totally not overpowered at all.

It was the classic "Cheatsy-Doodle," as my friends would say. For some reason, whenever we played matches without a banlist and I used Pot of Greeds in my deck, for some reason, I almost always ended up using 2 at once. Much to their frustration.

Nobody could explain it, and so the move had become a bit of a signature move of mine. I'd either have 2 at once in my hand, or I'd draw the second one with my first.

So I'd be on the ropes and then Bam!

+4.

They were never amused.

I looked at my hand.

I had everything I needed, now. No need to even use my remaining Graceful Charity anymore.

So I summoned my first monster.

...Speedroid Terrortop in defence.

It could be summoned for free when I had an empty field, preserving my normal summon for the turn.

It appeared on the field in a flash of light.

I activated it's effect, and hit the appropriate buttons on my duel disk to get Speedroid Red-eyed Dice into my hand.

My duel disk sent the card to the top of my deck, and I added it to my hand without delay.

Terrortop had two effects. It could special summon itself, and it let me search for another 'Speedroid' monster from my deck. I had chosen Red-eyed Dice.

I did not care at all if my opponents couldn't keep up with the pace I set with my moves, and so I just kept going.

If they had a response, they would stop me.

I placed the Red eyed Dice onto the field without a word.

A normal summon.

...And this was the beginning of an incredible combo that a friend had shown me some time ago. I had been blown away by it when I had seen it the first time.

It was art.

I used Dice's effect on Terrortop, which let me change its level to anything between one and six.

Using the interface on the duel disk, from the drop down menu on the screen that appeared for the effect, I selected level 2.

I now had a level one tuner, and a level two monster on the field.

I used them both to Synchro Summon Goyo Defender.

My monsters vanished, and a level three Goyo Defender appeared.

I immediately used its effect, which let me bring out another Defender for free.

It had the ability to summon a copy of itself. So after I had activated the effect, a second Goyo Defender appeared.

I used its effect immediately as well.

...A third Defender joined the other two.

Now, the only three cards I had on the field were the three Goyo Defenders.

I overlayed 2 of them for Meliae of the Trees.

...The two monsters vanished, becoming materials for the XYZ summon.

When it was over, I had Meliae, and one Defender left over.

I then used Meliae's effect to send Glow-up Bulb from my deck to the grave, after detaching a Defender.

Meliae could send a plant to the grave, and Glow-up Bulb was a plant. It also had a useful effect that could only be activated when it was in the graveyard.

This set me up for Glow-up Bulb, letting me use its effect next. I sent the top card of my deck to the grave to special summon the plant in defence.

Now I had a level 1 tuner, my Glow-up Bulb, and an extra level 3 Goyo Defender, in addition to Meliae of the Trees.

Using Bulb and Defender, I could Synchro Summon for four.

...I brought out Herald of the Arc Light.

Bulb, and my last Defender vanished, and Arc Light appeared. Leaving me with two monsters. Meliae, and Herald.

This set me up for Elder Entity N'tss' effect. I could send both of my monsters to the grave to special summon it from my extra deck.

N'tss could be summoned by sending an XYZ and a Synchro monster to the grave. A Polymerization wasn't needed, despite it technically being a fusion monster.

And so I sent them to the graveyard.

...This triggered the Arclight I just sent, letting me use it's other effect.

I added Nekroz of Clausolas to my hand with it.

...Herald's effect activates whenever it's sent to the graveyard, and it let me add a ritual monster to my hand, and I had chosen Clausolas.

I immediately used its effect. I discarded Clausolas to add Nekroz Cycle to my hand.

My duel disk brought it to the top of my deck, and I quickly picked it up.

It would be used later…

N'tss' effect was next. Using it, I Special summoned Dark Doriado from my hand.

She appeared on the field in a flash of light.

I activated Doriado's effect. It let me choose one Wind, one Fire, one Water, and one Earth monster, to put on top of my deck in any order.

...This was the first phase of the dump truck full of shit that I was going to empty all over my opponents.

Grandsoil the Elemental Lord was first, Nimble Angler was second, Mist Valley Shaman was third, and Jet Synchron was fourth…

* * *

"This guy, he duels like _him_."

"He's just a cheap knock-off. Nobody duels like the king."

"Don't let your guard down. Even after all of that, I can't tell what his strategy is, yet."

It was truly terrifying to watch. Their opponent wasn't speaking at all, and because of that, he was moving faster than ever before, summoning dozens of monsters in just as many seconds only to move on after clearing them all off the field.

The monsters would appear, and because their opponent wasn't declaring anything out loud, they would not wait for a verbal command of any kind and would simply immediately take whatever action they were directed to.

There was no conversation, or hesitation, and they simply reacted instantly.

It was like they all already knew what to do, and wasted no time.

* * *

After being liberated from the victory in the previous duel, hundreds of duel spirits had reformed throughout the spirit world and were able to sense the disturbance taking place.

They had been freed, but their allies had not. Not yet, anyways. Many were still trapped.

Another duel was happening to decide the future of their world, and they wanted nothing more than to be there to support the heroes defending them as best as they could.

And so dozens upon dozens of duel spirits began gathering around the arena, observing as a lone, silent duelist powered through the most intricate, and complex combination of effects that any of them had ever seen.

They joined Yugi, Jaden, Yusei, and the others, to see what happened next.

They looked on in amazement, as some of their fellow spirits were called upon to play their parts, often times more than once, only to disappear so others could carry on in their place.

They looked on, and they knew in that moment, that the true heights of dueling skill had been far beyond their imagination.

This was the best duelist that they had called upon?

It was unbelievable.

* * *

...I overlayed my two monsters to XYZ summon Minerva, the Exalted Lightsworn.

N'tss, and Doriado vanished, and Minerva appeared.

At that point, only about 30 seconds had elapsed since I had played my first two Pot of Greeds.

I was really speeding through this combo.

Minerva's effect was next. I detached N'tss to send the top three cards in my deck to the grave.

...Since I had just placed a bunch of cards on the top of my deck moments ago, the exact cards that I needed to be in the graveyard, were now in place.

N'tss effect activated, and I destroyed Minerva with it, and Angler's effect activated as well.

...A whole bunch of shit happened all at once there. I had dumped some cards in the grave who had effects that activated immediately when they were sent there.

Angler having activated, because I had placed it as one of the top three cards in my deck earlier, with Doriado's effect.

Since Angler's effect was chain link two, it resolved first, and I was able to special summon two Nimble Sunfish from my deck with it.

The two fish appeared next to Minerva, and for the moment, I had three monsters.

...But then Minerva was destroyed, and so I had two, after N'tss' chain link one effect resolved, destroying Minerva, my own card.

I overlayed my two Sunfish for Herald of Pure Light, next.

The two fish vanished, and Herald appeared.

Then I activated _its_ Effect. Detaching my Fish to return Grandsoil to my hand from my grave, and to return Graceful Charity to my deck from my hand.

...The effect was weird. I could add a monster from my grave to my hand, as long as I returned a card from my hand to my deck after.

Next up was Grandsoil's effect. Since I had exactly five Earth monsters in my grave at the moment, mostly due to Doriado's effect from earlier and from carefully selecting which XYZ materials to detach for all of these effects I was using, I was able to special summon it.

...Getting five into the grave had been the whole point of all the seemingly pointless monster destruction earlier. I was setting up my graveyard for this exact effect to activate.

Grandsoil appeared next to Herald.

Then I used Grandsoil's other effect. With it, I special summoned Mist Valley Shaman from my grave.

Shaman, having been dumped there with Doriado's effect, earlier. It had been one of the cards I had placed on top of my deck and later ditched to the grave.

Both Grandsoil and Shaman were going to be summoned and removed from the field a lot this turn.

I used Shaman's effect next, returning Grandsoil to my hand.

Then I activated the Nekroz Cycle I had added to my hand earlier with Clausolas. With it, I tributed Shaman to ritual summon that very same Clausolas from the grave.

Then, since I had five Earth monsters in the grave again, I was able to special summon Grandsoil once more.

...It came out with another flash of light.

At this point, all of the noises around me, and all the flashes of light that showed up whenever I played a card or activated an effect started to feel distant, and I stopped paying attention to them entirely.

The only thing I paid any mind to from that point forward, was the combo.

Everything else disappeared around me.

This was it, I realized.

...

I knew this feeling.

I was falling into my element.

I used Grandsoil's effect, letting me special summon Shaman.

Then I used Shaman's effect, letting me return Grandsoil to my hand.

I Synchro'd for six using Shaman and Clausolas, bringing out Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier.

I brought out Grandsoil again, using its effect again to bring out Shaman.

Shaman let me return Gransoil to my hand.

Then I specialed that Grandsoil, using its effect to re-summon one of my Goyo Defenders from earlier.

Synchro for six using Shaman and Defender.

Bring out Stardust Charge Warrior.

Stardust's effect let me draw once.

Dewloren's effect. I sent Grandsoil, and Herald of Pure Light back to my hand and extra deck with it.

Overlay Stardust and Dewloren for Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal.

Beatrice's effect. Detach Dewloren to send Level Eater from my deck to the grave.

Special Grandsoil again. It's effect summons Shaman.

Shaman bounces Grandsoil back to my hand.

Special Grandsoil again. It's effect summons Dewloren.

I activated Level Eater's effect from my graveyard next, the one I had just sent there, which let me lower Dewloren's level to special summon it.

Dewloren's effect was up next. I bounced Beatrice and Grandsoil to my hand and extra deck with it.

Synchro for nine.

Using all my remaining monsters, I summoned Trishula, Dragon of the Ice barrier.

My field completely cleared out, leaving only Trishula.

...

And thus begins the loop. My graveyard had been set up, so had my field, and I was now able to enter the second phase of my strategy.

Phase one was now over. It was time to get serious now.

This algorithm that I had just finished churning through had been completely pre-ordained. I had not come up with it on the spur of the moment. I was nowhere near good enough to improvise something like that.

This whole strategy was the amalgamation of years worth of effort by the Yugioh community in my world, and then it had been uploaded to YouTube where my friend had seen it.

And then that friend had shown it to me.

I certainly never expected to ever use it to save a bunch of Ghosts, I gotta say. Yugioh Ghosts at that. And cartoon characters.

I was having a very strange afternoon.

I used Trishula's effect next.

I pointed at one of my opponents, and spoke for the first time since the duel started.

"That one."

...Since it was a two v one duel, Trishula's effect had been altered accordingly. I picked the opponent, and Trishula picked a random card in that person's hand to banish.

Trishula roared, and charged up some sort of weird energy laser attack. A moment later, it slammed into the villain I had pointed to.

Then I continued on, before either of them could react.

I had to set up the loop again. But the steps were mostly a repeat of what I had done earlier. At least the ending of that predetermined algorithm I had run through.

Special Grandsoil.

...Who in turn specials Shaman.

Shaman bounces Grandsoil, and Grandsoil is special summoned again.

Then Grandsoil's effect, which specials Dewloren from the grave.

Level Eater's effect lowers Dewloren's level, and it is special summoned from the grave.

Then I used Dewloren's effect. It bounces Grandsoil and Trishula back to my hand and extra deck.

My dragon vanished.

Then Synchro for nine. Using all my monsters to re-summon Trishula, Dragon of the Ice barrier.

...Trishula reappeared again in a flash of light.

Once again, I only had Trishula on the field, and everything was now identical to how it had been when I had first summoned Trishula. Meaning, I could do it all again.

I pointed to one of the villains in the same way I had previously. Only, I chose the one I hadn't picked earlier.

"That one."

Trishula's effect activated, and the laser slammed into the dude I pointed at. Banishing one of the cards in his hand at random.

This loop was infinitely repeatable.

...And I intended to repeat it until my opponents had no cards left in their hands. I had already taken out 2 cards in total, which left 8 left by my count, since they had each started with 5.

Nothing changed in my next iteration of the loop. I just did it again, exactly as before. Without saying a word.

Grandsoil.

Special Shaman.

Return Grandsoil.

Special Grandsoil again.

Special Dewloren.

Special Level Eater.

I had gotten better at these rapid duel disk inputs, so it was often the case that these monsters wouldn't even fully materialize before they had left the field again.

The flashes often happening so fast that they gave off a staccato-like sound not unlike that of a machine gun's.

Dewloren's effect returned Trishula and Grandsoil.

Then I Synchro'd Trishula again using my remaining monsters.

"That one."

I was alternating between my targets. It didn't really matter in the end who I picked in what order, since they were both going to lose their entire hands anyway.

Another Trishula laser, and another banished card.

I did it again.

Trishula's effect first.

Then Grandsoil targets Shaman.

Shaman targets Grandsoil.

Grandsoil leads to Dewloren.

Level Eater targets Dewloren and is summoned from the grave.

Dewloren bounces Trishula and Grandsoil.

Re-synchro Trishula.

Use Trishula's effect.

Repeat.

...I rapidly powered through the loop again and again, a little bit faster each time.

The monsters were barely appearing on the field for more than a second before they were taken off again.

And with each iteration of the loop, a new card in one of my opponents hands was banished.

I repeated the loop _ten_ times because I could, and because my opponents had ten cards in total, between them. Which left both of my opponents handless at the end of it all.

The series of loops had only taken about sixty seconds due to how rapidly I powered through them all, and most of that time was filled by an astonished silence from all the spectators, and from both of my opponents.

Bright flashes of light were rapidly appearing across the field as I kept summoning new monsters, and more flashes appeared when I took those monsters off the field again.

It all sounded like a really bad thunderstorm...

They were stepping stones, all of them. I abused Trishula's effect over and over again, and all of my monsters had eventually just given up on trying to sound intimidating when they were summoned, seemingly accepting their fate.

Normally, when a monster would be summoned, they would give a battle cry, or some other shout that was supposed to sound intimidating.

But I was pretty sure that the ones I was summoning had just given up on that after being summoned for the fifth time in less than sixty seconds, and after coming to terms with the fact that they weren't going to be attacking at all.

They were all nothing more than dominoes. They'd be set up in a very specific way, then knocked down again to trigger Trishula's effect. Then they'd be set up again… then be knocked right back down.

...

Trishula seemed to be having the time of its life though.

It would come out, and then Bam! It would slam my opponents with its favourite special attack, then it'd be gone suddenly. Then it'd come out a few moments later to slap them in the face yet again.

Bitch slap after bitch slap, was delivered by Trishula, until both of my opponents had no cards left in their hands.

When the last card was gone, Trishula was alone on the field, and the loops were complete.

All throughout that series of loops, I had felt like Emperor Palpatine during that fight with Yoda in Star Wars Episode 3 in the senate chambers.

Grabbing all of the platforms with the force and tossing them at the green midget, laughing maniacally all the while.

This had been exactly like that, and it had been so satisfying.

...But I was far from done.

Phase two had been completed. Both of my opponents were handless, and it was time to start phase three.

I ran through the setup for it.

Special Grandsoil.

Grandsoil brings out Shaman.

Shaman bounces Grandsoil

Grandsoil is summoned again.

...And so is Dewloren.

Dewloren bounces Trishula and Grandsoil, just like in the previous loop, and Level Eater is brought out again.

This time however, I Synchro'd for four, using Level Eater and Shaman. Bringing out Phonon Pulse Dragon.

This was where the switchups started to happen.

Special Grandsoil, using its effect for Shaman again.

Shaman bounces Grandsoil.

Level Eater is summoned by lowering Dewloren's level a second time.

This left Dewloren at level four, now.

I then Synchro summoned for four once again, using Level Eater and Shaman. This brought out Herald of the Arclight.

Phase three was all about setting up a decent field to counter whatever my opponents threw out on their next turn. To make a field so powerful that it was impossible to get past. Especially when my opponents were handless.

And I had just the thing.

I had exactly 3 cards on the field at the moment. One level 4 Phonon Pulse Dragon, one level 4 Herald, and one level 4 Dewloren.

Phonon Pulse Dragon was both a Tuner, and a Synchro monster.

...And all 3 of my monster's levels added up to 12.

It was time to drop into Quasar.

I Synchro'd for twelve without hesitation, bringing out Shooting Quasar Dragon.

...And wasn't that just ironic?

Thanks for giving me the card earlier, Villain-san.

As it had been in the previous game, Quasar's appearance was obnoxious and noisy. Bright, too.

But since I'm not blinded by stupidity like these guys clearly were, I was actually able to recognize the fact that this version of Quasar was actually a pretty shitty card on its own. So I needed to give it some cover.

I needed some more monsters on the field to watch its back.

Before Quasar had even fully appeared, I was powering through another combo. All while the explosion of noise that was Shooting Quasar Dragon echoed in the background.

Special Grandsoil.

Special Shaman.

Bounce Grandsoil.

Special Grandsoil.

Special Dewloren.

Dewloren bounces Grandsoil.

Level Eater lowers Dewloren to five, and is summoned from the grave.

Synchro for nine, using Level Eater, Shaman, and Dewloren, bringing out Trishula again.

Since my opponents had no cards left for me to banish, I was using Trishula as a beatstick. It had decent attack points, and it would do some damage next turn.

I continued on.

Special Grandsoil.

Special Dewloren.

Dewloren's effect bounces Grandsoil.

Special Grandsoil.

Grandsoil's effect specials Herald of the Arc Light from the grave in defense.

Herald had a negation effect. If my opponent activated a card, or monster effect, I could tribute it to negate the effect and destroy it.

The Shooting Quasar Dragon from my world had a similar effect, but the one on my field right now didn't. And was worse in my opinion as a result.

It was vulnerable without it, so Arc Light had to be there to watch its back.

"Two face downs," I spoke up for the first time since Trishula's violent rampage earlier.

I was just now coming down from the high I had achieved from the complete domination of both of my opponents at once.

Everything on the field had calmed down, and my voice could be clearly heard by everyone in the silence.

Placing the two trap cards face-down marked the end of my turn.

A Compulsory Evacuation Device, and a Breakthrough Skill. The first could bounce a monster back to the hand, the second negated monster effects.

I was pretty much set, now.

Both of my opponents were handless, as I had made them collectively go minus ten. They were stuck top-decking, banking on whatever they happened to draw to save them, and I still had ways of getting my entire field back on my next turn if everything I currently had was destroyed somehow.

I did not overextend this turn. And if literally every last card on my field vanished this upcoming turn with the Magic Card: 'Negate Your Opponent's Entire Last Turn and Pretend it Didn't Even Happen,' I could still mount an offensive next turn with the cards left in my hand.

…

"It's your turn now."

I officially ended my turn.

Come at me bro.

…

It was just then that I noticed the silence from everybody else in the area.

I glanced around in confusion.

...Trishula's rampage had clearly left a mark on the psyche of all the spectators.

Even all of the Duel Spirits in the area were staring at me in astonishment. Even the monsters I had summoned onto the field were looking in my direction with widened eyes.

It _had_ actually been pretty impressive to watch to be fair, though. Not to toot my own horn, or anything...

I was summoning things pretty damn quickly near the end of my turn. So quickly that that finale had probably looked like a fireworks display to everyone.

Every time a monster either appeared on the field, or was removed, a large flash of light appeared. And I had probably done that around a hundred times last turn. I didn't know the exact number off the top of my head, but that was what my first wild guess would be if I had to make one.

...

My opponent shakily drew his card, looked at it, winced, and set it as a facedown, ending his turn without a word.

Either a trap or a spell.

...

The second guy drew his card, and summoned it in face down defence position, ending his turn.

Neither had said a word, and both of their turns combined took less than 30 seconds.

Both of them were refusing to even look at me directly, let alone try and make eye-contact.

…

' _Wow,'_ I thought to myself. ' _Seriously?'_

Weren't these guys just telling me how they wouldn't let me leave earlier? What the hell kind of turns were those?

Everyone was still silent as the grave.

...

"Draw," I declared, starting my turn.

"MST your facedown."

I activated Mystical Space Typhoon destroying the face down Negate Attack that my opponent had placed last turn.

...Which would have actually been annoying to run into.

I moved Herald into attack position.

It had 600 attack points only, and was far better off in defence. But due to the Upstart Goblin I played at the beginning of my last turn, I actually needed these final 600 points to defeat both of my opponents this turn.

"I use Grandsoil to run over your set monster."

I decided to explain my moves since I didn't have a million things to do this turn and could take the time to do so.

I was using Grandsoil as another beatstick. It had a decent amount of attack as well.

I had done the math, and figured out that I had enough attack points on the field right now to take out both of my opponents' separate pools of 8,000 life points on this turn.

So, unless my opponents had some absolutely insane last instant strategy to survive, this would be over in just a couple more attacks.

Grandsoil destroyed the monster with ease.

There was literally nothing left on their fields now. Or in their hands.

And since Trishula banished cards with its effect, all of those cards I had removed from my opponent's hands earlier on my first turn were not in the graveyard. They were banished. So off the top of my head, I couldn't think of a single card that they could possibly have in all of Yugioh, to stop me from winning this turn.

"Quasar attacks you twice," I said, pointing at one of the duelists.

He was wiped out with that.

Quasar had 4,000 attack, after all.

"Quasar's third attack hits you," I said pointing at the second duelist.

This version of Quasar had a maximum number of attacks equal to the number of monsters used for its synchro summon. An effect that was a little different from the one from my world, which had a maximum number of attacks equal to the number of non-tuner Synchro monsters, used in its summon.

This version had one more attack than the normal one did, in other words. It was a very subtle but important difference.

With that, one opponent was gone, and the other was at 5,000 points. Because this one had been the one to benefit from my earlier use of Upstart Goblin. So he was 1000 points higher than he should have been.

I still had Trishula and Dewloren though. And most importantly, I had Herald.

Trishula and Dewloren would provide 4700 points of direct damage, combined. But that would still leave me 300 short.

But with Herald in attack position as well...

"Trishula and Dewloren both attack you directly."

The attacks go through, and then the game is over once I declared my final attack with Herald.

It was just enough to finish the job.

His life points dropped to zero with that, and the duel was over.

I thought it was pretty awesome that Herald of the Arclight was used to go in for the final strike. With its measly 600 attack points, it probably didn't see too many duels where it went on the offensive, especially as a final blow to end the duel.

It had to be humiliating to lose like that.

I grinned beneath the shadow of my hat.

...

These guys couldn't cancer their way out of a paper bag. How could they possibly expect to win a game like this?

Nobody said a word for a while after that. And the entire atmosphere in the arena was filled with an astonished silence. Like nobody could believe what had just happened in front of them.

It extended for quite a while as my opponents just stared at me in disbelief.

The ball of light appeared again in the silence, and the villains lost their decks again, just like before. And the lights slowly made their way over to me, leaving me with all their cards.

...

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" One of the astonished villains finally asked.

I just stared at him for a moment, trying to think of a witty reply.

...

"Nobody," I answered, tipping my hat down again to cover my eyes. "From nowhere."

"Why you.." One of the villains growled out.

"Enough!" Another one shouted.

...

"I have no idea who this person is, but we clearly underestimated him. We are falling back for now. We need to tell the King about this."

The King? I guess that's the final boss of this shitshow.

The group tried to stare me down for a few moments longer, but then they turned and left the area.

I, not knowing what else to do, opened up my case again, and started dumping the cards that I had won, all inside. They weren't my cards. They were probably the cartoon characters'. But I really couldn't hold them all with just my hands, so I piled them into my case anyway, into a specific corner.

I'd let them take back whatever was theirs later.

* * *

 **AN: I have no beta reader either, so there may be a few errors here and there. Hopefully not too many.**


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